REBOOT Helljumpers: A New Hell
by BraK3R
Summary: A Search & Rescue mission leaves a squad of the UNSC's finest in the pits of hell as they stumble to survive. Reboot of DelVarO's original fanfic (with permission of course - )
1. 3 Weeks of Hell

_**BraK3R's A/N:**_ Hey guys, this fanfic is a reboot of DelVarO's original one which he never finished. I personally contacted him for permission to relaunch and finish this fanfic, so now I'll be in control of the story. Just wanted to say thanks to him for this awesome story! You can search him up on FF if you want to read his other work, or his original Helljumpers fic. I hope you all enjoy this story as much as I do :). Please note, I am currently re-editing the first ten chapters that DelVarO himself wrote and some things may deviate a little bit from the original. I was thorough when I went through this entire chapter so grammatically everything should be in order. It'll take me a while to finish editing the rest of these chapters as I have school and such, but I promise that I should be able to move onto Chapter 11 after i've finally finished up the first 10 chapters by the end of this week. Enjoy! And please review!

**_DelVarO's A/N:_** Hello there, this is my new fic! hope you will enjoy it, leave a review and have fun reading it! :) Also i would like to add a note: This fic does not have much to do with the AvP movie, its more connected to the books. Disclaimer: I do not own the Halo or AvP franchises. All rights go to their respective owners. This a non-profit work of fiction

**Chapter one – Three Weeks Of Hell**  
**1940 Hours, February 28, 2563 (MILITARY CALENDAR) / Planet Venatio/ Jungle**

Kyle jumped through another bush. He zigzagged through the trees and plants, not allowing himself to be an easy target. He knew that one of those… things was following him. **Fuck, how the hell did I allow myself to lose them?** He kept looking to the sides, hoping that he would spot someone from his team. He heard a roar above his labored breaths, coming from the thing, followed by another, one that he had never heard before.

As if on cue, the bushes in front of Kyle moved and he stopped in his tracks, his MA5B Assault Rifle raised. He was an ODST; he had to keep himself calm, in any situation. Kyle held his breath, expecting to die any moment but the attack never came. He was sick of the anticipation and pulled the trigger anyways. Bullets sprayed from the weapon, ripping bushes apart and pelting holes in the trees, but nothing reacted. His reflexes kicked in and not a moment too late. Kyle leapt forward just in time, as a metallic spear missed him by a mere inch, and flew through a tree which eventually stopped at the ground, almost buried to its half.

Kyle landed in a roll, and quickly came out of it, his assault rifle aimed at the direction the spear came from. He released another hail of bullets but yet again there was no indication that he'd managed to hit his pursuer. He didn't waste time though, and jumped to his feet before sprinting away, taking care to place as much distance and obstacles between himself and the creature. He managed to cast a quick glance behind him and as he did, his heart sank.

The spear was gone.

He gritted his teeth and mustered all the strength he had before he put on a burst of speed. He kept running, jumping over bushes and fallen logs, and crashing through branches and foliage.

He looked at the trees around him and started to feel worried. All the trees and everything else around him was looking exactly the same, making him feel as if he was already lost. He looked at his HUD, the small NAV marker was still there and he was going in the right direction. Something exploded only a couple of feet from him, sending waves of heat and causing him to release a cry of surprise. His HUD was distorted by the EMP of the projectile. He quickly ran to the side and in the corner of his eye he saw another blue bolt of energy flying at him.

This one hit the tree in front of him, but this time the bolt exploded, sending out a small shockwave. Kyle passed right through the shockwave, his HUD blackened and he lost his footing without vision. He stumbled down and felt himself hit something hard, probably a tree. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck!' he screamed in his mind. **'Get up Kyle; don't let that fucker catch you!'**

The HUD turned back on and Kyle subdued his urge to scream in joy. He quickly got up to his feet; it was indeed a tree that stopped him. He looked to the place where the bolts came from. He narrowed his eyes and saw something standing there: a shimmering in the air, probably higher than two meters. He felt that it was looking directly at him and that feel didn't make him feel better. Instead of waiting to see what would happen, and he knew exactly what, he sprinted away. This wasn't their battlefield. To fight here against those creatures was practically impossible. This was their jungle, and for him and his team, they were the intruders. He had to get to open ground; maybe there he could even the odds. His ears caught a loud sound, similar to a gunshot but he knew what it was and he saw it in action. He jumped behind a fallen tree and a moment later, three two-foot long spikes were embedded into the wood. He took out his rifle and released another burst-fire but a second later the rifle clicked empty. He cursed under his breath and loaded a fresh clip. He heard two more shots coming from the alien weapon and a second later his cover shook and splinters flew into the air. Kyle didn't want to wait until his cover was destroyed, so he quickly stood up and ran.

The creature shot another round but Kyle was already far from the projectile. He ran as fast as he could, getting as far away as possible from his pursuer, sometimes sending glances, trying to spot the shimmering air again. He was looking to see the shimmering air and because of that, he didn't see the new pursuer joining the fray. The only warning he received was a sharp pain in his side as his feet left the ground. He collided into a tree and his breath was blasted away from his lungs. He suspected that there were a couple of broken ribs from the initial hit and he tasted copper in his mouth. Raising his gaze, he saw what had attacked him. It was black as night, with a banana shaped head and rows of razor sharp teeth. Small tubes grew from its back, like pipes leading straight to hell; it's two hands were claws and two legs with knife-like talons and a long tail ending in a long, slightly curved, dagger-like spike. But what gave it a more menacing look was the lack of eyes. You never knew if one of them could be looking right at you, and Kyle didn't know if it had other means to see. To Kyle it looked like a breed between a bug and a lizard. The bug "looked" at him, releasing a menacing hiss as long rows of saliva dripped from its mouth.

Kyle knew how fast those beasts were and he didn't waste any time. He raised his weapon and pulled the trigger. The bug moved fast and it charged Kyle but the bullets stopped it in it's place. Armor piercing bullets pelted the bug, creating giant holes in its exoskeleton and tearing off one of its limbs. The bug toppled to the ground with a squeal and continued to move for a few moments, its blood and intestines spilling to the ground, starting to hiss and releasing smoke as it touched the ground and melted it. That was another reason to keep those things at a large distance; instead of regular blood, they bled acid. Kyle stood up with a groan but before he could start running he heard another hiss. His heart sank down even deeper into his chest. He slowly turned his head and saw another bug, a few feet away from him. Kyle knew that he didn't have much of a chance of turning around in time, but he had to try. I'm not going to die here, you son of a bitch. He turned around, his rifle already raised and ready but the bug jumped at him with a squeal. Before he could pull the trigger, before he could do anything, a large blue bolt intercepted the bug mid-air, sending it flying away. Kyle stopped and didn't dare to move. He slowly moved his head to the direction where the plasma bolt came from and he saw what he expected: The shimmering air.

Kyle noticed something move on his chest and he looked down. Fear crept into him, fear for his life. He saw three red dots, formed in a triangle moving on his chest and eventually came to a stop, aimed at his heart. Kyle decided he wouldn't stay and allow the hunter to finish him there. He broke into a run, wincing in pain with each step, and realized that he had at least one broken rib. He kept running though, ignoring the pain and trying to get himself as far away as he could. He knew the hunter still had him in his sights and eventually he heard him shoot. Kyle glanced behind him, seeing the large plasma bolt flying towards him. He waited a second and then changed direction.

A small smile appeared on his face in triumph, but as he turned and looked back, the smile faded faster than it had appeared.

The plasma bolt had turned after him. He couldn't evade this one; he wouldn't manage to overrun it either. He turned to face the attack and raised his left arm, activating a wrist shield. A large energy shield appeared on his left hand, covering nearly all of his torso and waist. Kyle placed his hand in the path of the projectile, and hoped that it would protect him. The wrist shield was human manufactured, and it was much more powerful than the old covenant variant. The plasma bolt impacted with his shield and as a result he lost feeling in his left arm. The bolt had exploded on impact with the shield and most of the kinetic energy from the explosion had been absorbed by the shield. However, Kyle was still thrown from the impact while his shield dissipated. He flew a dozen feet and landed hard on barren ground. He groaned and tried to get up but he couldn't; feeling as if his left arm had been stabbed with a thousand tiny knives. He looked at it and noticed the wrist shield. The grey gauntlet-like object was slightly burned and a thin line of smoke rose from it. He coughed and tried to get up again but he couldn't. He wondered if he'd broken anymore bones when the bolt had struck him, but all lines of thought were interrupted as he heard heavy footsteps approaching. He raised his head a little and saw what approached him. It was the shimmering air, two and a half meters tall. He'd seen cloaking systems before and knew that in the jungle it was even harder to spot them.

A clicking sound, resembling a growl, came from the cloaked creature and a small red light shone from its head, three red dots appearing again on Kyle. Kyle looked around himself, trying to see where his weapon was until he spotted it, 5 feet away from his reach. It must have been thrown from Kyle when he'd been sent flying by the plasma bolt. He didn't even try to reach for it, knowing that he would never get to it in time. The three dots finally came to a stop at Kyle's head. Kyle looked at the creature and finally accepted death.

But before the creature could finish him off, a scream interrupted him. A man in marine combat armor jumped from the nearest bush, an M90 shotgun armed in his hands.

* * *

Cha'kun'da cursed under his breath when his spear missed his pray. Until now he was partially impressed, but also disappointed. This Ooman was a worthy pray but it did not meet his expectations. From when he was a suckling, he had been told that Oomans were dangerous and should be taken seriously, but this one simply ran away from him and didn't fight back. Almost didn't fight back, he corrected himself when the Ooman released a hail of projectiles from his Burner. Cha'kun'da had simply leapt to another branch to avoid the projectiles. The Ooman hadn't seen the movement, and so it had kept shooting at his last position for a few more seconds before it had continued running. The warrior jumped down and picked up his spear. The spear folded inside itself, becoming much smaller and compact.

Cha'kun'da holstered his spear and activated his Burner, a small shoulder cannon, resembling the one the Ooman had. The hunter jumped up to a branch above him and leaped to the next one, all the time following his prey with his eyes. He reached to a convenient spot and aimed his burner. The Ooman was fast, but not fast enough to escape. He reminded himself that his other 'eyes' could not see him. Cha'kun'da had hunted Oomans before, but those who had come here recently were different, they did not produce heat. His other 'eyes' could still see him but it would be best if he did not allow the Ooman to get too far. His mandibles moved to form the Yautja smile as he thought about the other Oomans. His skull would be a great addition to his trophy wall and he wanted to catch the other Oomans as well. The Oomans had entered a hive of the hard meat, and gotten out alive, no small feat. Even the bravest Yautja would think twice before entering into a hive, and even fewer would get out of there unscathed. Their skulls would be a worthy trophy indeed.

This hunt would bring him an abundance of glory and his tale would be sung for centuries. The females… He planned to sire more than a hundred sucklings, to spread his bloodline and to create dozens of warriors like him. Females liked great warriors, and he was going to be the greatest of them all. He had been blooded only a few years ago but he'd accomplished many things since and he was honored by many. The next thing he wanted was to become Leader, and for that he needed to hunt more. He stopped his daydreaming immediately. In order to accomplish any of the things he wanted, he would have to catch this Ooman first, before the others could escape.

He fired his burner. The bolt of energy flew toward the Ooman but it missed him. He fired again, this time the bolt struck the tree right in front of the Ooman, who ran a few feet and then stumbled and fell down. Cha'kun'da looked at the Ooman and chuckled. He suspected –No, hoped- that the Ooman was still alive, and soon enough the small warrior rose to his feet and looked directly at him, before running once again. The hunter looked at his burner, eight shots left. There were still more than enough Oomans on the planet, and he needed to save every resource he had.

He deactivated his burner and drew his spear rifle. He jumped to the next branch and quickly aimed at his prey. Cha'kun'da pulled the trigger and the rifle shot three spikes. The Ooman though, heard the shot and jumped behind a fallen tree. Cha'kun'da cursed himself; the Ooman began to earn his respect. He saw the small warrior's burner come out from behind the cover and shoot. He chuckled; none of the bullets were even close to hitting him.

He aimed at the Ooman's hand and released two shots, this time single spikes, but the Ooman returned his hand behind cover before the spikes could pierce it. Cha'kun'da growled in frustration, this small warrior began to annoy him. If he hadn't moved his hand, the spikes would've impaled his hand to the tree, leaving him an easy target. The hunter released another shot but the Ooman easily avoided it as he left his cover.

Slinging his weapon over his shoulder, Cha'kun'da quickly followed. Cha'kun'da jumped from branch to branch, staying in the high ground where it was easier to follow his prey, but the hunter noticed something else that was following his prey: Hard meat, and two of them. The hard meat stalked the Ooman, who didn't notice it. When it was close enough, it pounced and tackled the Ooman at its side. Cha'kun'da knew that such an attack could be deadly; he'd seen many Yautja fall down from such a strike and a few even died from it. This was his prey, his trophy. He would not allow a simple drone to take away what was his. The small Ooman warrior dispatched the first one with his burner, but it did not see the second one, who approached from behind. Cha'kun'da activated his Plasma Caster, and a small burner came out of his shoulder, locking onto the hard meat. The hunter opened fire just as the hard meat leaped. The plasma bolt zipped through the air and smashed into the hard meat's torso. The bug's middle section exploded and it fell to the ground in acrid smoke. He aimed now at the dazed Ooman and charged the shot. An uncharged shot could kill an Ooman in a single shot but a charged one would end it quickly; this Ooman deserved it. It was a good hunt but Cha'kun'da was tired from the small warrior and he had many others to hunt.

The Ooman stood there for a moment as if it understood what was going to happen. The shot was now fully charged and he released it. The bolt flew towards him but the Ooman suddenly broke into a run. He changed his direction and shifted to the right, an understandable and expected maneuver, thought Cha'kun'da. The Ooman stopped in his tracks when he saw that the bolt had followed him. He was going to meet his death honorably without running away from it the hunter thought, but then something unexpected happened. A shield of energy appeared on the Oomans left hand and he presented it to the bolt. The plasma impacted into the shield with a small explosion. The shield failed and the Ooman was sent flying from the blast. Chan'kun'da narrowed his eyes, the ancients were right, Oomans were more than they appeared to be and also full of surprises. He leapt to the next branch and from there he saw the small warrior, who was still moving.

If not for the mask he wore, Cha'kun'da would've spat on the ground, but still, the hunt was over. He jumped to the ground and approached the Ooman. He was trying to get up but he couldn't. Cha'kun'da would finish this quickly. He aimed his plasma caster at the small warrior's head. "It is over." Cha'kun'da said to the Ooman, though he doubted he could understand him. He was about to shoot but before he did, another Ooman holding a burner jumped through the bushes behind him, screaming something Cha'kun'da couldn't understand, and fired the burner. The most intense pain that Cha'kun'da had ever felt coursed through his stomach. He screamed in pain and then another one of the burner's projectiles hit him and then another one. Cha'kun'da grasped at his wounds without looking at them, and when he raised his hand he saw that it was full of pale green blood, his own blood. He took some steps back and felt himself lose his footing. He managed to look at his body before he fell down: three gaping holes full of blood, two in his stomach and one in his chest. He cursed himself for being caught like this, by a cursed Ooman. He felt his consciousness leaving him but he tried to hold onto it for as long as he could.

* * *

Three people moved through the bushes and trees. Damian followed Ramirez and Akira to the place where the gunfire came from. They had somehow managed to lose Kyle and now they had to find him. He shouldered his BR55 and prepared to fight for his life. The last explosion had been really close and he didn't want to be fighting before he needed to. **C'mon Kyle, Where the fuck are you?** Ramirez, the marine, took the front and Damian and Akira took the rear and covered the flanks. "Wait… I heard something." Ramirez suddenly said. Everyone stopped, listening closely. And then Damian heard it: Heavy footsteps. Kyle was close, and that meant so was the hunter. Ramirez raised his M90 shotgun and slowly walked toward the sound, followed closely by Damian and Akira. The three of them tried to be as silent as possible but it was impossible, breaking twigs and crunching on leaves was noisy as hell. Damian just hoped that the hunter didn't have good hearing. They continued to move that way for few more minutes but then, without any warning, Ramirez broke into a run.

Damian and Akira ran after him. "Come get me you ugly son of a bitch!" Ramirez screamed at the top of his lungs as he opened fire. Damian ran through a bush and the whole scene opened up to him. Kyle was lying on the floor, apparently alive and in front of him was a shimmering air, which Ramirez was firing at. He watched in amazement as gaping holes appeared at the shimmering air and pale-green colored blood flowed down from them. The cloaked creature screamed, took a few steps back, and fell to the ground clutching it's wounds. Damian ran to Kyle. "Are you okay?" he asked him. "Where the fuck were you guys… I've been looking for you assholes for ages and that fucker over there chased me down…" he said and coughed.

"Can you move?" Damian asked. He inspected Kyle. His left hand was slightly burned and the wrist shield was totally roasted. "I can't get up and I think my left hand is gone… can't feel It." he answered and tried to get up.

Damian helped him to stand up and he steadied Kyle, who was obviously dazed and his left hand was limply hanging on his side. He looked at the hunter. Ramirez was standing near it, his weapon still aimed at the alien, as if he expected it to get up any moment. Akira helped him steady Kyle. "Feet first into hell eh?" Damian said to Kyle. "Asshole." He muttered back.

Damian recounted the hellish last three weeks. Those bugs and the fucking predator aliens, each one of which wanted him and his squad dead. When he thought about it though, everyone here wanted everyone else dead. Kyle was right, this was hell.

How the fuck did they end up in the middle of this?


	2. Introductions

_**BraK3R's A/N:**_ Hey guys sorry for not updating as promised but i've been sick the past couple of days. I'll try to update as much as possible when I can. If you are also wondering, I plan to keep all of DelVarO's original A/N's just because. I also altered some stuff in this chapter from the original since I found some story-related issues with it. It should be all set now. Enjoy and review please!

**DelVarO's A/N:** Hello there! Thanks a lot for the reviews! I hope that i didn't make you wait for too long but the chapter is herenow! I had a few issues with this chapter and i hope its as good as the last one. ^^ Correct me if you spot any flaws or the likes, suggestions are always welcome as well :) Now, Enjoy this chapter, leave a review and have fun!

**Chapter 2 – Introductions**

**0530 Hours, February 7, 2563 (MILITARY CALENDAR) / UNSC Frigate New Age / Orbit / Planet Venatio**

Damian took out his lighter and lit another cigarette as he continued inspecting his gear. They were in the HEV bay, preparing for their rather early mission. Ever since they'd received new engine upgrades from their new alien allies, traveling in space had become a lot faster. Damian was used to the long journeys, and the long hours of sleep that accompanied them. Now, at this early hour of the "morning", when most of the crew was still asleep, the ODST's had a mission to do.

Damian had finished inspecting his BR55 and turned his attention to the rest of the team. PFC Akira was sitting next to him, cleaning her sniper rifle and greasing the barrel. She was in her early thirties, of Japanese origin, with smooth skin, and raven-black hair tied into a ponytail that also complemented her bangs. She was the friendliest person Damian ever met in his life, and he'd sworn that he'd never seen her angry throughout their time of service together. She was a little shorter than him, about five and a half feet tall with a slim body. She noticed that he'd been looking at her and flashed him a warm smile and a wink from her dark brown eyes. Though now, she was looking a little displeased.

"Hmm, you look a little… disturbed this morning." He asked her. She raised her eyebrow at the question and looked around to see if anyone was listening. This motion raised Damian's curiosity. "Well, last night Brass had a little… too much to drink. Let's just say that I had to use my fist to change his priority of interests." She said with a frown and gave an angry look at Brass' direction. Damian laughed out loud, causing Akira to launch a large scowl in his direction. He released a puff of smoke and gave a look at Brass. It looked like he was giving all his effort just to avoid looking in Akira's direction, which made Damian chuckle even more. Even though Akira was very friendly, everyone knew that if they brought Akira's wrath upon themselves, it would be the last thing they would ever do.

On a crate of weapons nearby sat Cpl Jake, also known as Brass. He didn't know why or where he got his nickname, but it was his. Jake Niles was the biggest asshole in the universe, but he was loyal and sometimes, even a good friend. He stood almost seven feet tall, with battle honed muscles and an unshaven chin. The rest of his face was a little scarred, a scar on the left side of his face, said to be from a straying plasma projectile that had almost hit him square in the face. Near Jake sat the Kids.

Unlike the rest of the team who'd fought together for years, the "kids" were new recruits; joining Echo squad only recently for a few brief months. The kids, Privates Kyle and Jimmy, had joined the ODST Core only a year ago and this was about

to be their first real mission. Neither of them looked older than 25, and that's where the nickname came from, they were still kids. Kyle was almost five feet tall and he was nearly as slim

as Akira. He had short blond hair and green eyes, a nose that looked like it had broken several times and a small scar above his eyebrow. Jimmy was dark haired and about six feet tall with a fit body build. His face was young and his blue eyes gave him a boyish look. The three of them were having a conversation and he overheard a fraction of it.

"I'm not saying that I want another war but seriously, aren't you bored?" Jimmy said. The other two were looking at him, scowling.

"Yeah, it's a little boring but it's not a reason to hope for another war. I lost family in that shit…" Kyle said, loading a clip into his SMG. Brass just shook his head and stared at Jimmy, as if he felt sorry for him. "Sarge, can I slap the stupid out of this idiot?" Brass asked Sgt William Leone "The Grey".

He was called the Grey because of his age. Standing six and a half feet tall, he had years of battle scars lined up across his entire body from head to toe. Just one look at Sarge, and anyone could immediately see that he was a seasoned veteran. His face was a little wrinkled and his neatly trimmed hair was steel grey. His dark blue eyes had something frightening in them, something dead inside. If to believe rumors, Leone was over a hundred years old and Jake once said that he'd found out that Leone had joined the UNSC back in the late 60's of the 24th century. Damian and the others knew otherwise however. Leone perhaps looked old, but they all knew that when it came to fighting, Leone could beat all of them with a single hand if he wanted. And if anyone could rely on someone during a battle, it was Leone.

"Listen kid, billions of people died in that war; many of my friends too. So if I hear you saying shit like that again, you'll be joining them too." He growled, his tone leaving no room for debate. Jimmy scowled but said nothing. "Don't worry Jimmy; I'll help you out if it does happen. I'll shoot you first so you won't have to suffer when Sarge gets to you." Sean added, drawing a chorus of laughter. Jimmy mumbled something that sounded like "Assholes" and said no more.

Damian put out his cigarette on the ashtray placed near him and looked at Sean. Sean was an odd Helljumper. Whenever he could, he would grab the closest available Covenant weapon. He was holding a Covenant Carbine and Damian knew that Sean was in love with that particular rifle. Sean was in his forties, the battle was visible on his face and head. He was completely bald, with countless scars all over his head but his face had much less scars and his bright green eyes shone with life. PFC Damian was six feet tall with a muscular body build and battle-honed muscles. He was in his early thirties but he looked much younger. He had short light-brown hair and grey eyes and his nose was a little bent from an old fracture. Damian finished attaching his armor, left with only with his helmet and the UNSC wrist-shield. The wrist shield was the human version of the Jackal shield. More powerful, more efficient, and more coverage in order to protect larger areas. Rumors said that the UNSC wrist shield could handle a shot from a fuel-rod cannon, but it was a rumor that Damian wasn't hoping to disprove. He attached the gray metal bracelet-like device to his wrist and tried it out. A shield appeared on his hand, fully covering his head down to the knee. If he crouched, he would be fully protected. The only downside of this device was that it wasn't rechargeable, so if the energy ran out, the gauntlet would become totally useless.

"All right, let's go through the operation again." Leone barked, drawing the attention of everyone in the HEV bay. Everyone looked at the Sergeant, some groaning in protest. Leone had gone over the plan three times already. "I'll explain this simply and quickly because some of you aren't looking too happy to hear this again." Leone said with a scowl. "About a month ago we got a distress signal from one of the facilities on this planet. As far as I know it's a scientific lab. This planet is first contact, meaning that those science geeks were the first to arrive here." He said with a shrug. "We don't know what happened or why they sent a distress signal, so we're here to find out." "The signal is about 2 months old, so let's hope we are not too late." He continued. "I don't know what we're up against, this place is neutral territory, so the chances that we could meet brutes or rogue sangheili here is small, but it's still a possibility. As far as I know, we lost contact with all three planetary facilities when the Ark was destroyed, no contact from them ever since, not until now." "Sir, I read the mission log... wasn't there a garrison of marines stationed here alongside the scientists in each facility? Over 30 marines each if I remember, and an entire armory in each of the facilities too. So why send us?" Brass said. "I don't know Brass, they could be having issues with local wildlife or some shit, but they called and we answered. Listen everyone, we go down there, get to that lab, see if we can help them and if we can't, we get those scientists out of there!" He yelled. Some nodded, some looked a little disappointed. Damian was suspicious… why would someone send a full squad of ODST to check up on a science lab? And for help against the local wildlife? This seemed weird… unless there were chances of brutes or other dangerous creatures.

The war had ended almost a year ago, but the brutes had never given up. They weren't a massive force now, and they couldn't mount any massive attacks, but they still attacked small planets and trading stations. The Elites had done most of the cleanup work by waging their own personal war against them, but encountering them here was possible. Considering that this planet had been here a long time and that it hadn't been glassed could mean that the brutes had long ago seized it… but then why had the distress signal come only now?

Damian donned his helmet but after a second he heard a knock. He turned his head to see PFC Mary Herman. She was in her late twenties, with shoulder length blond hair tucked into her helmet. She was a little shorter than him and her blue eyes sparkled with eagerness. In her hand was a bottle of beer. "Want a drink?" She asked him, offering a second bottle. "No thanks, I prefer to be sober if we encounter anything when we land." He answered. "As you wish, there's just no way im getting down in these pods on a fully clear head." She mumbled and went on to offer the second bottle to Brass. A moment later he chuckled as Leone confiscated the bottles. The next few moments passed in silence as everyone gathered their equipment and prepared for the mission ahead. After a few minutes Leone, now in full battle gear, his face hidden behind his helmet's visor, cleared his throat. "Alright boys...and girls," He nodded towards Akira and Mary. "We're going out in 5 minutes…" He said and climbed into his HEV pod.

* * *

Nik'ah'kum silently climbed on the tree, taking care that his prey would not notice him. He was cloaked and was practically invisible, but the cloaking generator did not block sound, and if he made too much noise, his prey would escape. His prey, a large beast that ran on four legs with a large horned head and a thick hide, silently ate a small dead animal beneath the tree. Once the hunter climbed on the tree, he silently crept to the branch that was above the beast. He would have to be careful, if he missed the initial strike; the beast could easily skewer him with one of its three horns or simply run him over.

It was night, and the shadows would give him additional cover. He silently unsheathed his spear and prepared it for an attack. The beast was oblivious, for now. This would be the last hunt of this night. Nik'ah'kum jumped down, but the beast heard him and started to run. The spear stopped it however. Even though the spear had partially missed, it had stabbed through the back instead of skewering the head. The beast roared, revealing blood dripping razor sharp teeth and turned around to face its attacker, red eyes filled with rage aimed directly at Nik'ah'kum.

This was what Nik'ah'kum had feared. Leader had told them about these beasts, that they could become berserk and would never stop until their enemy was dead. But he wasn't ready to die. He had faced the Hard Meat and lived, this large beast was no match for them, and so it wouldn't be a match for him either. The beast charged, putting the three long and sharp horns in front of it, but the hunter jumped high, away from the beast's reach. The beast missed him but kept on charging, eventually colliding with the tree and tearing it out of the ground.

He was amazed for a moment; it had been a long time since he'd seen such a feat of strength. If this animal were to hit him, he had no doubt that the many bones in his body would break instantly. But he also noticed that the momentum was the animal's enemy. The beast turned around and charged again; seemingly not caring that it had just torn a tree from its roots. The hunter leapt to the side, throwing his spear at the beast while in the air.

The spear hit it's mark, tearing through the hide and ribs and ripping apart internal organs and dark red blood flowed through the wound. The animal howled, whether from rage or agony Nik'ah'kum couldn't tell, but a moment later, the beast charged again!

He was left without a weapon, except for one. A pair of three foot long blades, slightly curved and rugged on the inner side, came out of the wrist guards he wore. He stood ready, the beast about to crush him. At the last moment he leapt to the side again, slashing with the blades, tearing two long gashes on the animal's side. The beast howled again, blood flowing out of the wounds, leaving small puddles on the ground. Nik'ah'kum roared, challenging the animal, taunting it. The horned animal turned around and charged again, more slowly this time and with an apparent limp in its charge. The hunter chuckled, this battle was over.

When the beast was close enough, he leapt again, but not to the side, but forward. He grabbed the largest horns and swung himself around it, coming to land on the animal's back. The beast squirmed, trying to drop the hunter from its back but the hunter's grip was firm and the animal would not succeed in its attempts. Nik'ah'kum raised his hand and drove the blades into the beast's skull, again and again. The beast toppled to the ground, already dead. The hunter lifted his bloodied hand above his hand and let out a victory roar that echoed throughout the jungle. He grabbed the horn once again and slashed at its base with his armed hand, easily cutting the bone loose. He was first to kill this creature, he would bring this horn and show it to Leader. He would show the other ones… they doubted him, speaking that even the furred hunters would easily kill him but they were wrong.

He looked at the small net filled with this night's trophies. He placed the horn and spotted the pair of fangs that belonged to a furred hunter. None of them had ever killed a large beast such as the one before him, he was first to do so. Next night, he would kill a dozen of the furred hunters and a dozen of these large animals… that would teach the others who was better. He looked up at the sky. It began to change color, slowly becoming brighter and the number of stars decreasing as the clear skies started to decrease. Dawn was closing. He kept musing at the thoughts of their faces, the realization that they were wrong until he heard something and spotted movement at the corner of his eye. He quickly took out the spear out of the dead beast's side and stood ready for battle. But battle didn't come. Instead he spotted Leader, Nichire.

"You fought well." He said with a glimpse at the dead beast. "You are the first one to kill such a beast in this hunt." Nik'ah'kum bowed his head in thanks. Not many were given such compliments, especially from Nichire. Only by looking at Nichire, it was obvious why he was Leader. He was a seasoned fighter, a veteran of many hunts. Many called him Queen Slayer, since as it was told, Nichire had killed three of them. His mask was covered in markings, markings of honor, courage and experience. Tales were woven about Nichire, tales that Nik'ah'kum listened to when he was a young suckling. This made him wonder how old Nichire really was. And realization also hit him that in front of him, was standing a living legend. Someday, Nik'ah'kum thought to himself, he would surpass Nichire. He was about to ask him about the next hunt when suddenly he noticed that Nichire was not paying attention to him.

In fact, he was looking at the sky. Curious he looked as well but a moment later, he was confused. Eight balls of flames slowly dropped to the surface of the planet. None of them said anything for a few moments, they just watched the fireballs drop down until Nik'ah'kum decided to break the silence. "Rocks?" He asked Nichire. Rocks falling on a planet could ruin the hunt for a long time. "No." Nichire answered simply, rather calmly. "Then what is it?" He asked after another moment, being unable to find an answer by himself. "Soft Meat." He said and Nik'ah'kum could almost smell the anxiety in Nichire's voice. "Oomans."

Nik'ah'kum considered the options. If he could hunt an Ooman, and be the first one to kill one… the others would be forgotten, and only he would be remembered in this hunt, except, well of course, Nichire."Are we to hunt them?" He asked Nichire, eagerness in his voice. "We are not here for them." He replied calmly, as if not caring. "But we still must warn the others." Nichire said and walked away, leaving a very dumbfounded Nik'ah'kum behind him.


	3. What the fuck happened?

_**BraK3R's**_**_ A/N_:** What's up fools! This chapter took me a bit to update cause i've been dedicated with school recently (also, i'm sick). Please keep in mind, even though I am just re-editing the chapters, it is a very tiresome ordeal due to the fact that I have to reread through the chapters slowly, trying to comprehend errors and whatnot while also looking for inconsistencies in the lore. I know, the chapter is still not perfect, but I do the best I can with what I have. Enjoy people! And please Follow,Favorite, and Review! :D

**DelVarO's** **A/N**: Hello again! I decided to work harder this time and to give you this chapter as a new year present and as a token of my appreciation for the support this fic received. Also i wanted to apologise that it took me so much time to update. This took me some time to write and i hope that it turned out okay eventually. So without further time wasting, Here is the third chapter! Enjoy the fic and remember, reviews are always welcome.

**Chapter 3 – What the fuck happened?**

**0604 Hours, February 7, 2563 (MILITARY CALENDAR) / Planet Venatio**

The HEV pod was violently shaking, threatening to fall apart, though it never did. Damian looked down and saw how the ground came closer and closer, the tiny ant-sized trees growing in size as he dropped down. The COM though, was even louder than the rumble from the pod. Brass was singing some song, which everyone but him seemed to know, with Mary and Sean humming along too. It would've been a mighty fine song if none of them had forgotten the second half of the chorus.

"Brass, I swear to god... if you land near my pod when we get down there, I promise you i'm gonna shove my boot so far up into your ass that you'll squeal like a grunt for the next decade…" Leone growled. Brass immediately shut his mouth, drawing a chorus of laughs.

They were about to land, just a few more seconds and Damian could spot the ground, trying to spot his presumed landing spot. What he saw did not make him happy, not at all.

There was a thick jungle beneath them, a wavy sea of green and other colors sporting through random spots. But the jungle beneath him seemed to abruptly end with a very large drop. And the angle he was dropping into didn't do anything to ease his worries.

There was nothing to do now but wait; he embraced himself for the landing. The pod jerked upwards as the chute deployed, causing the "metal egg" to somewhat decelerate, before the metallic chute detached and once again sent the pod hurtling downwards at a slower pace. Damian felt his stomach drop to his boots as he was hit by the sudden drop of speed. He had the urge to vomit inside his helmet but decided to save it for later; maybe after the landing.

A moment later, he heard a crashing sound as violent vibrations resonated throughout the pod's hull. His field of view was being obscured by a cloud of dirt and stone as the pod skid on the ground.

Eventually the HEV stopped and the hatch was blown out, only it didn't land a few feet ahead of him. Instead it fell downwards another 300 feet. Damian allowed himself to release a heavy sigh of relief. He looked down. He'd landed right at the edge of a ridge but down there, the sea of green trees continued. As he watched the endless green ocean, he noticed several large dust clouds, probably raised from the landings of the rest of Echo squad. He decided it was time to move.

He grabbed his equipment and slowly climbed out of his pod. When he was out of it he saw the short trail of destruction his pod had left in its wake: a small canyon about a foot deep and a pair of broken trees.

"Echo squad report!" Leone's voice ordered.

"This is Echo four, all clear." Damian responded and a moment later he heard the others respond as well.

Damian looked down at where the rest of his team had landed.

"Beautiful isn't it?" a voice said. Damian looked at the source, noticing Akira coming to stand near him.

"I was thinking more about how the hell we're going to get down from here… but yeah, it looks nice." He answered the question once she stopped next to him. They both shared a moment of silence, just looking at the sight before them. The jungle had an aura of mysteriousness about it, which was only further enhanced by the traces of sunrise.

"Let's make sure we know where we need to go to first… what if our destination is up here?" She said, and Damian was sure she had a sardonic smile on her face. He nodded his agreement; he didn't want to climb down this godforsaken mountain if he could avoid it.

"Echo Leader, this is Echo four. Where is our destination?" He asked the squad leader.

"Lets see…" Leone said. A moment later a NAV marker appeared on their HUDs.

"Fuck…" He heard Akira whisper in defeat. They would have to climb down the mountain after all.

Akira walked to edge and looked down. Eventually she started climbing down and Damian soon followed her. As soon as Damian caught up to Akira, he realized that it would take some time to get down all the way. His hands gripped with all their might as one of his legs tried to find a foothold whilst he tried to avoid looking down. Akira on the other hand, had much more luck. She was now more than 20 feet beneath him, climbing down much more swiftly than her teammate. She stopped on a small rocky perch beneath and looked up at Damian, silently watching him.

"Fuck was that?" He heard Jimmy's voice say in surprise.

"What was what?" Brass answered.

"Something moved, right over there…" Jimmy whispered.

"There's nothing there, don't be such a pussy." Brass said, teasingly.

"Fuck off, I'm serious, I heard something" Jimmy said, his voice becoming more and more agitated.

"Oh yeah, like wha-" He attempted to say but he was interrupted by something that made him scream in surprise.

Damian stopped climbing and twisted his head so he could get a view of what was going on. There was a moment of silence but then he heard gunshots clearly vibrating through the COMS.

Damian increased his speed and started sliding and skidding down against the wall until he nearly fell off, which forced him to return to his previous pace.

Akira meanwhile, crouched down on another perch beneath Damian and took aim with her sniper rifle.

"Echo One, this is Echo six, I can't get a visual on you, what's going on?" She asked over the COM.

"We're getting attacked by fucking monkey people!" Brass screamed and the sound of continuous booming gunfire was heard.

"These are apes, you idiot…" Kyle yelled, as he fired his assault rifle. Brass was too busy to reply with something witty.

"They are everywhere! Don't let them surround us!" Sean warned.

"Get to the treeline; I'll cover your back!" AkIra suggested.

"Alright, boys and girls we're moving! Hold hands, we don't wanna lose anyone!" Leone cried.

Damian silently listened to the conversation as he climbed down. Apes… the only thing he could think of, were Brutes. He finally managed to get to Akira and crouched near her,

looking around for their squad. After a moment of waiting, he saw them; everyone was running toward the treeline with Leone, Brass, and Kyle covering their backs while shooting at what looked like... well...

"Apes." He mumbled in confusion. He hadn't really expected to be fighting apes today. He inspected them with his visor's zoom and as they got closer, more and more details were revealed. They stood around 9 feet tall, had shaggy gray fur, small heads with what looked like giant fangs coming out of their lower jaws, short legs and the longest, muscled arm Damian had ever seen in his life. He was amazed for a second as he saw one of the apes use his arms to catapult himself at least 15 feet into the air, landing right in front of Brass.

Brass didn't stop though; he just kept running forward, unleashing a hail of bullets at the creature. The ape cried in rage, pain and surprise and retreated, more than a dozen holes in his body leaking dark red blood. 'At least they feel pain in a normal way…' Thought Damian, remembering how many bullets it was needed to take out a brute, who would have rarely flinched when even a dozen bullets had hit him square in the face.

Only then, when the squad was almost at the stone wall, did he notice exactly how many of them were chasing after the ODST's. There were at least 50 of the beasts! Akira was shooting like crazy near him, and after each shot another creature would drop to the ground, writhing in its own blood.

A large stone boulder, about the size of Damian, crashed in the middle of the escaping ODST squad, clipping one of them. Damian recognized it to be Jimmy.

He tried climbing back to his feet but he would be too late; the bestial tidal wave was almost upon him. But before it could swallow him, Leone shot past them, scooping up Jimmy while he ran back. What none of beasts noticed was the small round object that Leone left in the place of Jimmy.

The tidal wave swept over the object and a moment later it exploded, sending dirt and pieces of apelike beasts flying into the air, but Leone was already far away from it.

Damian was amazed each and every time Leone displayed his physical condition and prowess. There was still much fight left in the old man.

Leone carried Jimmy all the way to the stone wall, much to his dismay, and then threw him against a stone so he could turn around and open fire at his 9 feet tall followers.

The last ones to arrive were Sean and Brass, followed by four of the beasts. Mary shot a full clip of an SMG into the small crowd, attempting to at least slow them down. She killed one of them but the others, a little wounded but still in the fight, kept on, almost on Brass and Sean.

A pair of the beasts suddenly dropped down, both with gaping holes in their heads. Mary looked up and saw Damian and Akira shooting down on the creatures. Brass and Sean turned around in time and eliminated the remaining one.

Damian looked from his high perch as more of the Ape-like beasts charged out of the jungle into the fray, only to be met with a hail of bullets. Some died, some managed to flee but more and more came to replace them, but the ammo of the ODST's didn't. If Damian could describe it with a single word it would be chaos. Blood was everywhere; bodies of the raging beasts filled the ground, creating a circle around the human soldiers.

Leone was standing in the middle of all this. Shooting down the hostiles and shouting orders.

"Cover the left flank!" He screamed as he rushed to help secure the right flank.

"Throw some frags! Shoot them down once you fix it!" He screamed at Brass who had a problem with his weapon. Brass cursed aloud and threw his BR55 to the ground, taking out a frag and his M6S sidearm.

Then, something weird happened; the beasts suddenly retreated, most of them at least. The sound of battle ceased for a moment but then, a large boulder crashed just a few feet beneath Akira and Damian, sending rubble and pieces of stone raining down on the soldiers below.

"What the hell?!" Sean screamed as more stones rained down on their heads. Everyone jumped to hide behind any available cover they could find. Leone hid underneath a pile of the dead beasts.

"Looks like these shitheads are not so dumb after all." Brass said as another rock crashed near him and pieces of it rained on his head.

"I can't see any of the shooters. I think they're aware of my location and took precautions. I can't do anything." Akira said with anger.

She motioned Damian to follow, and they both climbed quickly, down to the rest of the squad. If they'd have stayed up there they would have become sitting ducks.

"We can't stay here. 10 more minutes like this and I'm out. I don't want to fight these freaks with my fists." Sean said. "I don't know, at least when we were fighting the covenant we could take their weapons... but this... this reaches new levels…" He added and looked at Leone, who stayed silent through the whole conversation. He sat with his back against an ape corpse, his helmet staring into a small PDA that was in his hand. When he noticed that everyone was looking at him, he returned his PDA to his belt and looked back at them.

"You won't believe this… I hope that you remember those files I told you to memorize." He told them.

"Yeah, I did. I don't remember any apes going batshit insane like this though." Brass said, moving his hand in a waving motion to indicate the mess around him. Leone sighed.

"I hope that at least the two of you remember the files…" Leone said when he saw Damian and Akira finally reach down. "Yeah, I remember these apes in the files… though they aren't exactly like I remember them." Akira said.

"Exactly. The files say that these are 'Passive creatures that will become hostile only if they feel threatened.' And that they move in large packs. The only thing correct is the part about the pack." Leone announced. A moment of silence ensued.

"Why the fuck are we talking about this when we're getting bombarded by rocks?" Kyle asked when a rock fell near by, breaking the silence.

"I feel safer when I know the enemy. But what I see here is… strange. Anyway, we can't stay here. We're soon going to be low on ammo." Leone said, taking a peek around his cover.

"So how are we going to do it? Where do we run to?" Brass asked while looking around for any signs of the animals while shouldering his retrieved BR55."They're territorial creatures, if we leave their territory maybe they will leave us." Akira said.

"So that's our plan? Run like hell and hope they don't catch us before they get tired?" Kyle said incredulously.

"Yes, we don't have any other option." Said Leone with seriousness and got up into a crouch.

"Alright, Brass, Sean, you cover our backs, Damian and I will clear the front, the rest of you cover our flanks. Don't waste ammo, shoot to kill." He gave the order and another peek at the jungle.

"On my mark..." He said, everyone preparing for a hell of a run. "Mark!" Leone barked and everyone broke into a swift run.

They ran as fast as they could, Leone leading the way. They kept running near the mountain, keeping at least one of their sides safe but eventually the path lead back into the jungle.

They didn't stop though, they just kept running. Damian heard a single shot come from behind him but he didn't look, he needed to concentrate on the front. He could hear the roars of the beasts behind them, many things moving through the bushes around them. They ran through the jungle, with Brass and Sean to keep their backs safe. They kept on running for a long time, Damian didn't count, his legs were aching and he was out of breath. They jumped or passed around every obstacle they met in their way until suddenly, Leone halted them to a stop.

Everyone stopped. Most of them were panting, Jimmy dropped to the ground and leaned against a tree, the only one who still had his composure was Leone, who stood as if he hadn't even sprinted during the last 15 minutes non-stop.

"Listen…" Leone said and turned around with his weapon raised. Damian listened closely and only then he noticed what Leone heard: Silence.

"Looks like they didn't follow…" Damian struggled to say with his lack of breath but as soon as he finished speaking a deafening roar was heard and the largest ape-beast Damian had seen so far, ran out of the nearest bush. It was at least 15 feet tall, with black fur some of which, was missing in certain spots, revealing scars.

Everyone raised their weapons but the beast didn't attack. Damian noticed the beast's bloodshot eyes looking at their weapons. These animals weren't dumb, Damian could see that and the fact that they had a slight insight on tactics showed it. The beast still, strangely didn't move. It just stood there, bearing its pointy teeth and sharp fangs and growling at them.

"Don't shoot… but if it moves one single step closer, fill him with lead." Leone said and slowly took a step back. Everyone did so as well. After a few more steps, the beast roared at them again, opening its massive and fang filled mouth, as if giving them a warning and then it sniffed the air. The creature oddly enough, stiffened and looked around for a moment.

None of the ODST's were sure about what to do, but the creature all of a sudden turned tail and fled.

"That was… weird." Sean said, answered by several nods.

"Why did it run away like that?" Kyle asked aloud.

"Who cares? We got away in one piece." Mary said cheerily.

"Lets go, we still have an objective to do." Leone said and motioned for them to follow.

They started moving in the general direction of the NAV marker Leone had placed. Damian thought about what had just happened. Something weird… something had spooked that creature… what if they were heading into a far greater danger than the previous one they'd just encountered? He shook it off, not wanting to worry himself too much. The squad moved silently, none of them having anything to say or some just simply wanting a moment of silence and peace. After a few more minutes, a curious sight was unfolded in front of them. In front of them, were about 20 cat-sized creatures.

He couldn't describe them in any way other than that they resembled a cross between a bird and a rat.

They had black fur all over their body, with a beak-like mouth and razor-sharp teeth. Their arms and legs ended with small claws.

"Scavengers. Not a danger for us." Leone said.

"Look…" Akira said. Damian saw that Akira was looking upwards as he followed her gaze.

Above them there were at least a dozen… things hanging from some sort of a rope. He should have immediately known what was hanging there, but it was completely covered by the scavenger creatures. It was obvious though that whatever it was, it had once been alive. He saw one of the creatures tear off a part of the flesh and swallow it as its claws were dug into what ever the thing was.

Leone drew his handgun and released a shot into the air. The creatures squealed, a high pitched shriek, and scattered all around, disappearing in the undergrowth around them. Just as the last of them disappeared from sight, Damian heard a startled gasp emanate from one of his teammates. He looked up and understood why.

Above them, hanging upside down from a rope of sorts, were twelve, half eaten and rotten human corpses. But there was something even more disturbing about the sight; some of the bodies had no skin, and all of them were headless.

"What...the fuck…" He heard Brass whisper. Kyle mumbled something about him not feeling well.

Damian inspected the bodies. They were not fresh ones, at least older than a couple of months.

Questions rose in his head, leading only to more and more questions.

"Who the fuck would skin someone?! Its not Covenant as far as I know… they've never even tried to pull shit like this before." Brass said with disgust creeping into his voice, expressing

Damian's exact thoughts.

What the fuck was going on here? First, these animals had attacked them without reason, and now… these bodies hanging upside down from a tree. He looked at the ropes that were tied to the feet of the bodies. The ropes had been tied to the high branches of a huge tree but… that looked like an awfully difficult job to do. The one or "ones" who did it must've climbed up the tree, while carrying the bodies. From there, they must have hung the corpses from the highest branch. But the fact that the branches were 25 feet above the ground and extremely slender… well whoever they were, they were very dedicated to whatever reason they had done this for.

"Bodies are impossible to identify, the facial structures have been eaten and decomposed beyond my scanner's recognition software capabilities" Mary declared.

"I have a feeling we'll soon be finding out who's bodies these belong too..." Leone said.

* * *

Nichire was impressed. He had hunted Oomans before, and most of them had not been a difficult prey to hunt. The years before had been a great time to hunt the Oomans, what with their war going on against the Covenant. He realized that this puny species amazed him the more he thought about it. The Oomans fought an enemy who outmanned, outgunned, and outnumbered their own race, and yet they had still prevailed. The war had lasted a quarter of a decade and the humans had achieved bitter and utter victory. Against all odds, they'd survived. Nichire never quite understood what had happened in the end. The elders from different hunting parties had told of some galactic-scale event that had transpired and Nichire mused at the thought that one of the most ancient races in the galaxy had missed it. His mandibles formed a smile as he remembered those times, at least a decade Oomans and the other soft meat they fought were battle hardened warriors with their senses at their peak. They had been the ultimate prey at that time… the ultimate soft meat prey.

But that time had ended, the long war was over. The fighting had resumed in small skirmishes but not like it had been before.

These Oomans however, were different. They fought like true warriors and prevailed in dangerous odds. Even he would question himself before entering the territory of the furred beasts, and he'd have an even harder time getting out of there. That is, if he was alone.

He had followed them since they'd landed on the planet, right after he'd sent Nik'ah'kum to meet the others.

Nichire knew how a team worked; he had been taught and perfected the art since he was a suckling. These Oomans fared well against the animals, and worked as one body. When he watched them fighting near the mountain wall, he immediately found the Leader. The bulky Ooman was standing in the center of the battle, shouting orders in the tongue that Nichire couldn't understand. He could practically smell the stench of a hundred different battles reeking out of their Leader. He saw the aura of a warrior in his stance, in his stride, and in his voice. But there was something else in there: weariness and age, their Leader wasn't young, but with age, came experience. He would be a worthy opponent, even if he wouldn't stand much of a chance against Nichire.

He mused at the thought of hunting their Leader down and challenging him, but it was not meant to be. Not now at least. He had watched the Oomans long enough to know that they never came alone to a planet, and he certainly knew that one of their massive ships was in orbit now, with a small army inside.

He recounted an incident he had heard about some time ago. A Yautja hunting group had killed a pack of Ooman warriors, but there was a ship in orbit and more and more Oomans had come, searching for the Yautja. The hunting group had barely escaped in time and luckily, the Oomans had never found what had killed their comrades .

No, he wouldn't hunt them, and he wouldn't allow the others to either. Secrecy was their power, and he wasn't going to break it. The Yautja had hunted the Oomans and other countless races for centuries now and not once had they ever been discovered; not as far as he knew. He wasn't going to be the one who would cause their cloak of enigma to drop. If the Oomans found out about his race, the option to hunt them in the future would become entirely different.

He had always watched the Oomans whenever he could out of curiosity, but his curiosity was not matched with the same level of intensity that the Oomans had.

If the Oomans found them out, they would hunt them down, study them, and exterminate his race. Nichire was not going to be the cause of it. As long as the Oomans were unaware of them, everything would remain the same. Now, they only needed to ignore them for the time being, and as long as the Oomans didn't interfere, or more accurately, stumble into their hunt, everything would be fine.

He kept on watching them for some time as they encountered and inspected the dead bodies that the other Yautja had hung there. These ones had interfered, and so they had been removed.

A few more minutes passed as Nichire watched them, not understanding their conversation and what they planned to do. Eventually, their Leader motioned for them to follow and they went on their way to their destination, wherever that was.

Nichire gave them one last look and went in his own direction. He had to explain to the young ones what was at stake.

He was Leader. They had to listen to him. And if they didn't, he would kill them. The elders would approve.

**DelVarO: Well, here it is, the end. It was rather short, but i hope that you liked it after all. Hopefully, the next chapter will be written soon and you wont have to wait for it too long. Well, that was me and the new chapter. Leave a review and, Happy new year!**


	4. Fear

_**BraK3R's A/N: **_Hey guys, i'm really sorry about how ridiculously long it took me to get back to this. There really is no excuse, just that i've been lazy. I just want you guys to know that I have not abandoned this fiction as it would be a double disappointment, so here's BraK3R, back at it again.

_**DelVarO's A/N:**_ Heck yeah! I'm back and i have a new chapter with me. Sorry it took me this long to update, but i had a

lot of things to do lately, or i was just too lazy to do anything. Stupid heat wave... and stupid writer's block.

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this chapter, i did enjoy writing it. Have fun reading it!

**Chapter 4 – Fears**

**0823 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Jungle**

Anxiety, a lot of fucking anxiety; that's what Damian was feeling right now. At this point in his military career he was considered a veteran, especially since he'd been fighting with Echo squad from the beginning. Currently in his early thirties, he was starting to age but nevertheless still remained physically fit and agile. It felt as if he was still in his early twenties, fighting hard and living rough, but now he felt himself slowly losing his edge, as if the tip of a knife were to become dull. Witnessing at least a dozen squad members come and go through the 11 years of his service, Leone, Brass, Akira, and Sean had been the only ones who'd stayed throughout the years.

Some of his best friends had died right in front of him during battle, a few of them in his arms occasionally, their blood always soaking his BDU's. Injured beyond memory, both emotionally and physically, it was surprising just how much he was still able to take now that he thought of it.

He'd always felt fear before battle, knowing that every time he dropped into battle could possibly be the last time he ever did. Fear, when soldiers who had been standing right next to him got egged by plasma bolts, falling to the ground screaming in agony and rage, refusing to go down without a fight. He definitely felt fear a lot of times, but he'd never felt

anything like this. During the Covenant-Human war, and the following "Cleansing" as many called it, he had always known what he was fighting.

25 years of learning how the Covenant fought and developing counter-measures against them, the fight had always been hard but at least there had been ways to fight back against the enemy. Here though... here there was nothing to shoot at, nobody to fucking return fire to.

They all knew something was here in the jungles with them, but they didn't know where or what it was.

He knew one thing for sure though; it was definitely not friendly and it was most definitely not of Covenant origin. In the two decades and a half of war, the Covenant had never conspired such grotesque displays. Sure, they treated humanity like vermin, but they **never** hanged the dead; usually they'd just leave the bodies on the battlefield until they rotted or until the planet was glassed.

They also never took heads for trophies, as the ODST's had soon found out after inspecting the bodies. The heads had been ripped clean off along with a portion of the spinal cord, as if it had been a normal and effortless action to perform .

Akira had suggested that perhaps it was a local alien race that was intelligent enough to hang bodies and skin people, but that theory was quickly ruled out.

The research facility here had reports on nearly every known species that inhabited the planet, and no species here had been found intelligent enough to actually make ropes and skin people. Other life forms in the universe were found to exist long ago, and evolved life-forms that could build civilizations and eventually travel space were a proven fact. Whoever was out there in the jungle with them, didn't seem too keen on making allies.

* * *

Nichire was worried, and worry was a thing only sucklings and unblooded pondered about. Experienced and honored warriors like Nichire did not worry; they lived the hunt and triumphed. This however, unnerved him greatly. He was worried of a particular Yautja, one that had been blooded only recently. Young Yautja were often brash and arrogant, full of themselves, and overconfident in their abilities. Nichire himself had been like that in his younger years. It had only taken his mentor and first hunt leader to dishonor him in combat and teach him a hard lesson. Young Yautja that disobeyed their Leader didn't live long, as for ones that actually challenged one… those were rare and often considered foolish. The word of the Leader was law; they weren't Leaders for nothing.

His old mentor had allowed him to keep his life and live with the shame of being defeated. Nichire had learned from that day on that there were hunters who were always much more experienced than himself, and to always expect someone stronger and faster than himself.

He would never admit it, but he missed old Akar'chi. Akar'chi had seen to countless hunts, many of them with Nichire. He'd sired countless bloodlines with the females and tales of his feats had reached all the way to the Ancients themselves. Akar'chi had met his fate honorably, facing a Hard Meat Queen by himself! He died that day, but he took the whole hive with him. Nichire wished his death would be no less grand than old Akar'chi's.

But Nik'ah'kum… He wasn't like the other younglings. Yes, he was overconfident and aspiring to greatness that was out of his reach… but he was no fool. Nichire spectated him during some of the hunts. He was cunning and dangerous and he wasn't a freshly blooded Yautja either. He was talented and had great potential.

Nichire would expect him to achieve a position of Leader in a few decades time, though not the Leader of Nichire's group. Nichire was not as young as he had been before, but he wasn't old enough to stop being Leader and Chieftain of the Hunt either. Perhaps a skirmish similar to his and Akar'chi's fight would erase the youngling's foolishness from his head.

When he had told the others about the Oomans, he'd seen Nik'ah'kum's reactions. He knew Nik' ah'kum wanted to hunt the Oomans for the glory of the hunt, and he also wanted an Ooman's skull on his trophy wall. Nik'ah'kum even dared to raise his voice on him and protest his order! The situation had been quickly defused though; it had been too close to a fight for his likings. What unnerved him even more however, were the reactions of the others. Even though they didn't express themselves like Nik'ah'kum, he knew that they silently agreed with him.

They wanted to hunt the Oomans as well, and he suspected that they would do that were Nichire not present on the hunt. They were not here for the Oomans however, this wasn't a normal hunt like the usual ones they participated in. There had been another hunting party here. No one had heard anything from the party for quite a long time, so Nichire's group had been sent here to find out what had happened to them, and finish the other party's hunt.

He had researched about that other party. They were a party of unblooded Yautja about to participate in their blooding ceremony, but as far as his suspicions went, they had failed since none had returned. And failure in a blooding ceremony was rare, which either meant that there had been an unforeseen foe, or there was a hard meat colony on the planet.

He also knew that there were other Oomans here, ones that had arrived before this new Ooman party. Nichire was not stupid, and he had already guessed what those new Oomans were here for. Both of their objectives were very similar. His hunting party had come to find the failed blooding ceremony party and the Oomans had come here to find their own party. But Nichire knew that if there were Hard Meat here, that meant that the Oomans who had previously been here were most likely dead.

Truthfully Nichire would prefer to leave the Oomans be, but he knew that if the Oomans were to somehow interfere, or a certain foolish young warrior were to disobey him, conflict would be unavoidable. Right now however, he decided to worry about Nik'ah'kum first. One thing that he'd learned from countless hunts was that if there was something that worried him, he always removed the cause of that worry.

* * *

The situation wasn't looking good. But really, when did it ever look good to begin with?

Their ammo was low enough to be a cause for concern and they had just started the mission not too long ago. Morale had also plummeted exponentially after the discovery of the headless human bodies hanging from the trees. Damian could practically smell the anxiety in the air around the members of Echo Squad.

He shifted his gaze to the Kids. They were new to this. Sure they weren't green, no ODST was, but they had never been in such a situation before, ever. In truth, they'd never been in any major battles at all, like the Battle of Earth or the Evacuation of Reach.

In a way, he envied them. Kyle had grown up in a 'happy' family somewhere in Detroit back on Earth. He had a girlfriend waiting for him back at home, something that Brass always laughed about stating how she wouldn't wait for him long. Kyle is an 'overly friendly' soldier and human being in general. Jimmy though, is more careful about his life stories. He's the silent type, the kind that doesn't talk much about his earlier life before joining the ODST's and only talks about it when he's asked.

Damian once wondered why Kyle decided to join the ODST, or into the UNSC to begin with. From what he'd heard, Kyle had had a pretty decent life back on earth, unlike the current "original" Echo squad members. Damian himself grew up on Mars and all he had left was Echo squad who he considered as family. Akira grew up on some planet in the inner-colonies that he'd already forgotten the name of, but it had been glassed back in 2545 when she was barely 15. She was the only surviving member of her family left. Brass never told any of them about where he grew up but they did know that his father and his grandpa had both served in the UNSC and he was just continuing the tradition.

Leone was actually the only one of the "original" squad that was born and raised on earth. The gray-haired Sergeant never liked to talk about his family, and they all respected that. They knew that he'd had a son in the Marine Corps who had been stationed on some base in the inner-colonies which had been attacked a little over 10 years ago. No one survived that attack. Sean was the only one of the squad whom they knew jack-shit about. The only thing he ever told them was that his family was gone.

Up ahead, Damian heard Brass mutter some curses when he tripped on a branch that had fallen and hidden in the jungle foliage. Damian had to admit that moving through this jungle sucked.

"Fuck… How close are we to the base? I'm getting fucking tired of moving through this jungle." Brass said.

"Shit, he does have a point there sarge. We've been walking for around 2 hours now." Mary said, for once actually agreeing with Brass on something that wasn't connected to fighting somehow.

"We're near, so shut up." Leone answered gruffly. They all knew that he wasn't enjoying this either.

"We will arrive in a few minutes, it's not that far. I really don't see the point of asking me the ETA when you can see it for yourself." Leone said with a heavy sigh. "They can see the distance on their HUDs… those dipshits." He muttered under his breath, which practically everyone still heard.

"Sorry sir, just trying to relieve the tension!" Brass said apologetically, though they knew he wasn't really sorry.

Damian was getting tired of walking as well. The jungle was getting thicker and thicker as they went through making their original plan, which consisted of them walking in a straight line to their objective, completely had been forced to find detours around thick clusters of wood, deep gorges, and thick rivers. He looked up, seeing the odd blue-purple color of the sky, the blazing sun, and the pair of huge bluish moons that were visible during the day and the night.

As Leone promised, it took them 'a few minutes' (which were actually 20), to get to their objective. A large green clearing, at least 500 feet in radius, stood at the foot of a small mountain. Damian noticed some small dog-sized brown-furred animals scatter away from them once they caught sight of them. Those small creatures even kind of looked like dogs, with the exception that they didn't have a dog's mouth; instead they had an elongated tentacle-like appendage, with a long pink tongue sometimes sticking out of it, tasting the air.

"Alright," Leone started saying after the animals scattered, leaving the humans alone in the clearing "The entrance should be around here…" He said while moving towards the mountain wall.

It took them about five minutes of searching until they found it and understood why they hadn't seen it at first. It looked like a rockslide had almost completely covered the entrance, blocking it with rocks, dirt and several pieces of what was once a tree. Luckily for them, it didn't cover completely, but in order to enter they still had to clear out the path a bit, much to Brass's annoyance.

"You think that this is the reason they sent a distress signal?" Sean asked while pushing off a large rock from the small hill the landslide had formed.

"I don't think so. They wouldn't have called because of such a small thing. Besides, it's not the only base on this planet, there are another two and if this was their only problem, they would've asked for their assistance, not ours." Akira answered. "But this does look discomforting."

"What do you mean?" Brass asked aloud.

"Well, if it was their problem problem, it would mean that the other bases would've sent someone to clear this out. Since it's still here… it means that no one's used this door for quite some time." She concluded.

"That's what I've been thinking. Come on, let's clear this out and see what's going on inside." Leone barked, urging them to work faster.

After a few minutes of working, Leone screamed his lungs out at Brass for throwing a large rock that almost flattened Jimmy. Finally, they cleared a path large enough for all of them to get through. Up ahead, with the faint light from outside shining in and the hard tac-lights beaming from the ODST's helmets, stood a heavy titanium door.

The door looked like it hadn't been used for a long time, but it wasn't damaged in any way either. Giving a quick glance back at his squad, Leone motioned them to prepare their weapons, and fixing his grip on his own weapon, he moved to unlock the door.

* * *

Nik'ah'kum stood before Cha'kun'da in the shadows of a large tree, away from the prying eyes and ears of their hunting party and the bright rays of the sun. Nik'ah'kum smiled beneath his mask. He knew Cha'kun'da well, too well for the older Yautja's likings.

"Why have you called me?" He asked the younger hunter, clicking his mandibles in annoyance. He didn't want to sound too hostile, his relationship with Nik'ah'kum was already strained as it was. He knew that the younger Yautja was stronger, Nik'ah'kum often holding victory over him in battle. He also understood that Nik'ah'kum was considered a prodigy, a very skilled hunter with vast potential, which was the second reason for their rivalry, and he'd heard the praises of older Yautja often rained upon the younger hunter, often saying that he would become Leader soon.

He never liked the younger, overconfident Yautja but he wasn't stupid. If Nik'ah'kum were to become future Leader, it would be good to be on Nik'ah'kum's good side. Which was why Cha'kun'da put up with him in the first place and answered to his call.

"You wish to hunt the Oomans." Nik'ah'kum stated more then asked with a click of annoyance from his mandibles. Cha'kun'da nodded his head, genuinely curious about what Nik'ah'kum wanted say that had to be said in private.

"Then we will hunt them together." The younger Yautja said.

Cha'kun'da looked at the warrior in front of him, shorter by half a head then him. He stood confident and his voice did not betray any hesitance. He considered his options. He wanted to hunt the Oomans. He'd already had experience with them once in another hunt, but what he had faced there… was not the same as the stories he'd been taught as a suckling. He'd been taught that the Oomans were the hardest prey among the soft meat; fearless in battle and impressive opponents in a hunt. But what he faced then… was a fearful bag of bones and flesh. He did that creature a favor by putting it out of its misery. Yes, it did put up a fight, as meager as it was, but he expected more. Much more.

He didn't give up hope though. There were different Yautja, perhaps there were different Oomans as well and he had simply been unlucky to hunt a cowardly one. Perhaps these new Oomans will be more like what the tales showed.

"Leader will not approve." He finally answered.

"I know. But I am already taking care of it. Leader will not stop us from taking our trophies from these Oomans. They are our prey." Nik'ah'kum answered with several clicks of mandibles accompanying him. Cha'kun'da suddenly realized something, though more suspecting was the correct word. Was Nik'ah'kum planning to become Leader in this hunt? He suddenly realized that if Nichire were to find out about this, he would kill Nik'ah'kum, and Cha'kun'da as well. But how will Nik'ah'kum accomplish this feat?

Nichire has many to support him, while Nik'ah'kum, no matter how talented he is, is still too young and does not have the support of the more senior members. Having many questions but not enough answers, he decided to ask. Besides, he really did want to hunt the Oomans.

"How will you accomplish this? The others will support Nichire, not you." He stated. To his surprise, Nik'ah'kum began to chuckle loudly.

"Do not worry yourself with this. I will take care of everything. The others will support me, and as for how I will accomplish that, you will have to see it for yourself." He said, clicking his mandibles in joy.

He placed a hand on Cha'kun'da's shoulder. "Go to the others now. Soon, we will have our hunt. Say not a word to the others about this."

"You may trust me. I will stay silent." He turned to leave but then paused. "You are not joining me?" he asked.

"No. I must find Nichire and speak to him about the upcoming hunt." The young warrior stated. Cha'kun'da nodded and left the shadows of the tree. He heard Nik'ah'kum leave as well.

He started to get a bad feeling about this. He respected Nichire, respected him a lot. He'd learned a lot from the older and respected warrior and sometimes Cha'kun'da even wished he could be like Nichire. He knew that he could never fight like Nichire. He'd personally seen him dispatch a dozen Hard Meat drones, with only his wrist blades and spear! Cha'kun'da had more than once aspired to become as formidable as his Leader but now, Nichire was taking away his chance to hunt a supposedly formidable prey. This was an insult to the warrior, who had silently fumed when Nichire announced that they were not to hunt the Oomans.

He didn't like this. He didn't like Nik'ah'kum. But as long as he would get his hunt, he would heed Nik'ah'kum's orders. As long as he would get his hunt, he would be willing to betray Nichire.

_**DelVarO's A/N:**_ Ahh, the plot thickens! It will get interesting soon, do not worry, it will be much more interesting! Ive been spending most of my time playing the AvP game, which was completely awesome, really. Unfortunately i havent managed to see the new Predators movie, which i heard was awesome, though not epic as much as i hoped it would be, but i cant judge it yet, i havent even seen it! I'm still rather pissed about the two AVP movies, which were unfortunately a large pile of steaming crap. Okay, the first movie wasnt so bad, just a large rip off of the AVP book, which i read, which was a lot better than the movie. Still, cant do anything about it, and Holywood have a habit of fucking up a lot of things. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, i will try to update a lot sooner, which would be a greatly good thing for both of us! If you liked this story, or chapter or whatever, please review! Your support will help me a lot, and if you did enjoy, dont stalk the story from the shadows, review the story and tell me what you think! I'm open for any ideas or corrections or anything else!


	5. Things Just Got Complicated

_**BraK3R's A/N: **_Wow, I finished editing this chapter rather quickly hehehe. Hopefully if i'm not too caught up with school next week, I can finish the ten chapters by the end of next week :D

_**DelVarO's A/N:**_ Hey there! I'm back again. Sorry for the slight delay but here is the new chapter and things are getting more interesting. This will be a bit more shorter, but only slightly and you wont really notice anyway. Have fun reading this. :)

**Chapter 5 – Complications**

**0915 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Research Base Alpha**

The base was dark and quite creepy. At least that was what Damian thought but he was sure that the others had similar opinions as well. The only source of light that they had were their tac-lights that were built onto their helmets but beyond that, they were walking down pitch black hallways.

Damian wasn't afraid of the dark. He'd been in dark places a lot of times during the war and it never really bothered him. No, what made him nervous was the silence. It wasn't just quiet here, it was that kind of silence, the one that makes you feel pressure in your ears, the type that makes you want to hear anything but that silence. Luckily for him, that deathly silence was kept interrupted by their constant footsteps and the occasional comment from good ol' Brass. Times like this really made the guy useful, to a degree.

Damian could see the small clouds of dust his boots made every time he stepped, which indicated that the outpost had not been used in quite a long time. From what he'd seen so far every function this base had had, was currently shut down, with the exception of the ventilation system which they were thankful for. He was pretty sure no one would be happy about wandering around a dark base lacking oxygen, though their vacuum-sealed armor system allowed a 15-minute tank of emergency oxygen in case they ever needed it.

"Where the fuck is everybody?" Sean asked. "I mean, as far as I remember this base had personnel of two hundred or more. They couldn't have all just vanished."

"Yes, they had two-hundred and fifty-three people here, along with a company of about 100 marines that were here for protection," Akira added, earning herself a couple of stares.

"How the hell do you remember these things…?" Sean muttered. "Anyway, where could they have gone to?"

"That's what we're here to find out," barked Leone as he stepped closer to a door, the first one they'd encountered on their trek through the dark hallways. Damian looked back at the way they had come from, the safety off from his BR55, and returned his focus to the door. It never hurt to be cautious and he would die before he'd allow something or someone to get them from behind. The Sergeant examined the door, found it open, and motioned them all to get ready.

Leone stood by the door, the rest of the squad falling into position behind him and on the opposite side of the door. As Leone pushed the door open, Brass and Sean stormed in, quickly examining the room with their weapons raised. Finding no one there, or anything that could be considered hostile, they lowered their weapons and gave the others the 'all clear' sign.

The rest of the squad entered the room and looked around for anything that could be of any use to them.

"It's empty," Mary muttered as she inspected one of the dusty tables.

"This won't do at all. We have to get the power on," Leone said. "The control room is on the second floor. If that won't work, we have to get to the bottom floor to activate the generators manually."

"Alright, then lets get a move on," Brass said and left the room with everyone else following him. In fifteen minutes time they reached the staircase to the lower floors since the elevators were offline. So far it seemed that the base still operated on minimal levels, barely. Whatever happened here had to be big to explain why the base had to be shut down.

They found more open rooms on their way to the staircase, most of them empty with no clues or evidence as to what happened, though some of them were quite messy. Nothing really, to indicate a battle or any sort of struggle but enough to indicate hasty movement, almost like an evacuation. As it appeared so far, the first floor seemed to be the floor where everyone worked, what they worked on was still a mystery.

One of the most intriguing things they spotted was in the mess hall. As they found out, there were enough food supplies here to last another year or two, so it indicated that the inhabitants of the base hadn't left for just any reason. It had to be good if they left all their food supplies here.

As they descended the steps down to the second level, they all wondered just what exactly happened here. There were no signs of battle at all, in fact, it seemed as though everyone had just stood up and left all of a sudden, though they were not really sure if it was from their free will, if the dead bodies they found in the jungle were any indication at all.

"Alright, the control room should be right around this corner." Leone announced as they turned the corner he talked about.

The second floor was filled with labs or rooms with research equipment in them. This floor was quite different from the first one. It was even messier than the first one, with scattered chairs and other things in those rooms. Leone stepped through the opened door of the control room and to their relief, dim light greeted them from the machinery and screens in the room. Sean and Akira walked to the machinery and began working to get the power back on.

"Kids, Damian, and Brass, I want you to search this floor for anything that might tell us what happened or even better, find someone still alive to tell us about it." Leone said gruffly.

"Roger!" Brass said and the rest silently followed him out of the room.

"Jimmy, you're coming with me, Damian, take Kyle." Brass ordered. "I'm not going to leave these two by themselves. They might get lost or do something stupid."

Damian nodded and motioned Kyle to follow him. He and Brass looked at the corridor and the pitch black that they saw at each end. "I'll take left." Damian said and without further words left in that direction, Kyle quickly following. They walked in silence for a few minutes with Kyle muttering something about Brass being an asshole. As Damian sidestepped a piece of the ceiling that had somehow fallen to the floor, Kyle took it upon himself to start a conversation.

"So what do you think happened here?" he asked.

"So far, i've got nothing on this place. One thing for sure, something funky is going on…" Damian replied.

"You think those bodies we found in the jungle came from here?"

"Yeah they could be, or maybe from the other bases. I don't know why would they leave the base though, it doesn't make any sense. The base is relatively safe in all regards and they had marines with them. They could have simply done a lockdown on the whole base and waited for us to arrive…but as we can see, they didn't." Damian gruffly said, illuminating one room with his tac-light finding nothing inside. "I don't like this. Where could they have all gone to? I mean, the jungle is not exactly the safest place," Kyle said.

"Yeah, it's not. I do know that if we don't find anything here though, we're going to have to follow protocol and make our way to Sierra Base. They might be there."

A soft hum suddenly spread throughout the base as white light quickly filled the corridors.

"Alright troopers we got most of the power back online, though it looks like one of the generators is still offline so we're going to have to activate it manually. Status reports?" Leone's voice sounded through the speakers in his helmet.

"Nothing yet, sir. The lights are on now though so it should make things easier," Damian replied as he and Kyle shut off their tac-lights.

"Alright, keep searching," Leona muttered.

"Roger that sir," He said and turned to his teammate. "Let's go."

They moved on through the now lit corridors and rooms. "What the fuck…?" Kyle muttered loud enough for Damian to hear. Damian exited the room he'd been inspecting and looked at where Kyle was looking at. What he saw was a black corner of the corridor, but that wasn't what made Damian so interested; what was so weird, was the gaping hole that the wall and floor had. They slowly moved closer, each removing the safeties from their respective weapons until they stood right in front of the hole. The hole itself wasn't deep, perhaps three feet deep and a piece of the wall nearby was missing but the most interesting part was that the hole appeared to be melted.

"Plasma?" Kyle asked as Damian crouched to inspect it.

"I don't think so. Look at the sides… looks like something dripped down there. There, see that?" he asked, pointing to one particular spot on the wall, which looked like it had been eaten away. Plasma doesn't do this, and I've seen enough plasma bolts to know how it works."

"Look there," Kyle said, walking near the wall to point to a small hole in it. Damian stood up and walked to him to inspect the hole.

"It was made by a bullet. Looks like they shot at something that was here," he said, indicating the wall and the hole in the floor. "And here's another one…" He quickly counted two more small holes, probably made by a side-arm, probably an M6D. Other than that, there was nothing that showed him what they had been shooting at.

"So what do you think made this hole?" Kyle asked to which Damian shrugged.

"I don't know, I think we should let Akira or Sean check this out. They know more about this than me, and Sean knows everything about covenant weapons,"

"Okay lets keep moving, there might be more stuff in that direction," Kyle offered, pointing at the darkened hallway behind them. Damian nodded and allowed Kyle to lead. As they walked through that particular hallway, Damian noticed more holes in the ground though much smaller than the first one they'd found. Eventually the corridor came to an abrupt halt in front of a large barricade made from tables, chairs, and other heavy objects that could've been found. Behind the barricade was another titanium door that Damian was sure lead to the third floor of the base. But it was unimportant at this moment. The important part was the door itself.

The door was welded shut.

"I think Sarge is gonna want to see this." Damian said.

* * *

Nik'ah'kum stood by the edge of the cliff that was to be his meeting place with Nichire. He'd thought over his plan dozens of times and he was sure that it would not fail. He had asked Nichire to meet him here and had shown up earlier to prepare everything that was to be needed. The plan he had was perfect and he knew that when he executed it, everyone would want to hunt every single one of the Oomans.

Oomans, the supposedly toughest soft meat to hunt. He didn't believe those tales of how powerful the Oomans were, how they were a good prey and that they could even reverse the roles occasionally if one were not careful enough. Nik'ah'kum had heard about hunting parties that had gone to hunt Oomans before, and he'd also heard about those that did not come back from those very hunts. Oomans were paradoxical creatures. They were physically weak, much weaker than a grown Yautja and they didn't stand a chance against one in close combat but in every Ooman hunting party that he'd ever heard about, there were always casualties.

Of course, casualties were a common thing against a formidable foe, but he doubted the credit that the Oomans were given. Regardless of what he thought about it, he knew for sure that they were not weak. The fact that they had survived a genocidal war against an opponent far stronger than them was a testament of that.

A rustle from the leaves of a nearby tree brought him out of his musing and he spotted Nichire studying the meeting place. The younger warrior turned to meet his Leader as he jumped down from the tree to land near him.

"Why have you called me here?" Nichire asked, weary of the young warrior. In his defense, a younger warrior to be calling their Leader in a secluded area of the jungle seemed suspicious.

"I wanted to discuss about the matter of the Oomans," Nik'ah'kum clarified.

"I thought that I had already settled this matter," Nichire growled. "They are not part of our mission and we must not draw them into our matters of affair," Nichire said angrily, clicking his mandibles from his irritation.

Nichire had followed the Oomans to their 'cave' to make sure that they would not interfere with the group's businesses. As long as they stayed in there, there was no danger to them and the hunting party would be able to complete their mission without any intrusions.

"I am well aware of that but I have something that might change your mind," Nik'ah'kum replied smugly, raising his arm to indicate the cliff.

Nichire eyed the cliff carefully. He wasn't sure what the young warrior wanted to show him there. Nichire was half-expecting him to attack now, to defeat him in a fight and take the position of Leader. With tensed muscles honed from years of experience, he walked with Nik'ah'kum to the edge of the cliff, truthfully curious of what was on the youngling's mind.

As they stood on the edge, Nichire looked down. The cliff wasn't very high, around a forty feet high drop down to the trees. Nik'ah'kum pointed down toward the trees and Nichire looked down at what he indicated. Nichire raised a nonexistent eyebrow. Around twenty dead Ooman bodies hung from the tree, one of the only things that were left from the first hunting party that they'd searched for. He had to wonder why Nik'ah'kum would want to show him this.

If Nik'ah'kum hadn't been wearing his mask, Nichire might've noticed the devilish smile that the youngling wore on his face.

A sharp pain spread through Nichire's back and he gasped in shock. He looked down and saw a pair of blades protruding out of his chest, a pair of blades that he recognized as the trademark wrist blades that all Yautja warriors used. It only took a second for him to bring the pieces together but he was too late to react. The blades left his back and reentered, eliciting a roar of pain from Nichire. He felt a strong arm grab his neck from behind and he was pulled down to the ground. He dropped down with a heavy thud, and Nik'ah'kum didn't waste a second; he stabbed him again and again, this time in the stomach. Nichire cried again but this time from rage.

"Coward!" He roared, ignoring the searing pain that it caused his lungs. It was a pure act of cowardice. No one would forgive Nik'ah'kum, no one. No warrior that honored himself would strike at an opponent's back, even before the battle started. No Yautja fought like this, unless it was a hunt, but this wasn't one. He tried to say something again but instead broke into a coughing fit and he felt warm liquid in his mouth. He realized that the treacherous bastard must've pierced his lungs.

Nik'ah'kum didn't reply. He simply crouched down near the weakened Nichire and reached to remove his mask, swatting aside Nichire's once powerful arms. As the mask came off, Nik'ah'kum was greeted by Nichire's hateful eyes. He took note of the amount of blood that was dripping out of Nichire's mouth, knowing well that if he were to continue talking, he would only quicken his death. Apparently Nichire knew this as well since he remained silent and unmoving. Nichire knew that his wounds were those that were often lethal, and his chances of survival were limited unless he received help. Unfortunately, he knew that help would never come.

"You…will pay for this," Nichire growled hoarsely, spitting out blood as he finished.

"I think not," Nik'ah'kum smirked as he inspected Nichire's scarred mask.

The young warrior moved to Nichire's side and kicked him in the ribs with all his strength. Nichire stifled a cry of pain and felt gravity take effect on him. The kick was powerful enough to send him rolling down from the edge and now he was about to meet the ground below. Nik'ah'kum stood on the edge, looking down as Nichire descended, eventually disappearing in the trees. He stood there for a few minutes, just in case Nichire survived and he'd have to finish what he had started. He knew that Nichire couldn't survive his, albeit cowardly, assault and this caused him to smile. With Nichire out of the picture, they would hunt the Oomans. Now, only one thing remained.

He walked to the bushes where he'd hidden his most needed item. When he reached it he crouched down, using his bloodied hand to grasp the small object that he'd lain there. He grabbed the Ooman burner that he had picked up from one of the dead Oomans, an M6D the Oomans called it, but he did not know that and did not need to. He aimed it at Nichire's mask. One clawed finger pulled the trigger twice and the weapon boomed two times, creating a pair of small holes in the mask.

He was glad that he'd taken the time to find out how to use the Ooman weapon, otherwise his plan would've failed. He had to wonder how the Oomans survived with such small and rather primitive weapons. Now, he had only one thing left to do. He raised the burner and aimed it at his own shoulder and pulled the trigger. Stifling a cry of pain he shot himself again, this time lower. Throwing the gun aside he breathed heavily, trying to ignore the pain. He knew that the metal projectiles that the burner shot were still in his arm but he could remove it later, it didn't really matter. Moving his fingers and wiping the blood from his wound, he then smeared it on the holes he had made in the mask. He would have to make it seem that Nichire had been actually shot.

He continued doing so until the mask was mostly bloodied by his own blood. All the while, he began grinning widely with the knowledge that the hunt would soon begin. Nichire was well respected on their home planet and in their hunting party. Many would want to avenge him and Nik'ah'kum knew that all too well, but he did not fear the retribution.

After all, the Oomans had been the ones who'd killed Nichire.

* * *

_**DelVarO's A/N: **_Ahh, that bastard. Anyway, thank you for reading this, i hope you enjoyed this chapter. Constructive criticism, suggetions and anything else you might want to say to me is always welcomed! Thanks for reading this again. Until next time, which will be around a week or two weeks from now.


	6. Beginning of the End

_**BraK3R's A/N: **_Sweeeeeeeeet, two edited chapters in one day! I feel accomplished hahaha

_**DelVarO's A/N:**_ I'm on a roll! Two chapter in a single day. Well, one chapter for this story :P. First of all, i believe that i must apologize for taking so much time to update (you probably though i was dead i think, but heh, im not) and i also apologize in advance for this chapter, since its ridiculously short. The reason for that is the four hours i spent writing this for the sake of updating this and dvancing the story after so long. I believe the next chapter will be much longer. Now, a warning for you, there might be some words that you simply wont understand later into the chapter, but do not worry! Just read it and enjoy, ill discuss more of it at the end of the chapter.

**Chapter Six - Beginning of The End**

**0955 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Research Base Alpha**

"They welded the third floor entrance shut?" Leone asked aloud after everyone had regrouped in the control room and Damian had reported what they'd found. "And that whatever melted the floor there wasn't plasma?" he asked, looking at Sean who had just returned from inspecting the hole.

"Yeah that ain't plasma sarge, that's for sure," Sean replied, looking worried about something.

"Then what is it?" Jimmy asked, interrupting whatever Leone was about to say.

"Honestly? It looks like acid and a pretty damn strong one too. As for why they spilt so much acid there, if they even spilt it in the first place, I have absolutely no clue," Sean finished grimly.

Brass kept silent throughout the whole conversation, blankly staring at the now working screens, which displayed the progress of the system diagnosis. Leone looked at him for several seconds before addressing him. "Brass, you got anything to say?"

Brass nearly jumped from where he was sitting, being broken out of whatever he was thinking of, and looked around for a second before he turned his gaze to their squad leader.

"Sir?"

"Tell me what you have on your mind, you're never this quiet," Leone said gruffly. Everyone's attention turned to Brass, who looked quite squeamish at the sudden attention he was receiving.

"I... I don't like this sir," he replied after a moment of uncomfortable silence. "This place is just... empty. Covenant don't do this kind of shit. This place is just empty, like everyone just disappeared. The worst part is that I've heard rumors of an event similar to this before," Brass finished uneasily.

"You have?" Akura asked, raising a delicate eyebrow.

"Yeah, back in '59 I was on shore leave on Earth and there I met up with some other Special Forces guys on shore leave. We got to talking about stuff and one of the guys told us about one of the missions he had. An outpost went dark and his squad was sent to check it out. When they arrived there the outpost was just empty. No people, no dead bodies, just...nothing there. The systems were wiped, no signs of battles, absolutely nothing. Command assumed that they had defected to the rebels and took all the data but the guy who told me about this didn't believe that shit and neither did I. The outpost still had plenty of supplies left and they found all the belongings still there. It's like they just suddenly left, leaving all their stuff behind," Brass finished, allowing the unsettling silence to engulf the squad.

"B-but it's not like that here," Jimmy broke the silence. "There are signs of battle here; that acid, the bullet holes, and not to mention that welded door!" he said, attempting to ease the sudden grim mood Brass's story had delivered.

"I don't believe anything until I find out what the fuck happened here," Leone concluded.

"I agree, we can't be sure of anything yet," Akira agreed.

"Besides," Mary added, "we might find something in the video databanks once the system comes back online."

"Alright, enough sitting around. I want all of you to search the second and first floor one more time. If you find anything that might explain what happened here, bring it to this room. Mary and Sean? You're staying here with me so that we can bring the system back up ASAP. The rest of you search the base, are we clear?" He barked, answered by a chorus of 'Sir, yes sir!'. The squad, with the exception of the three that stayed in the control room, quickly piled out through the narrow door and all split up. Akira casually strode up to Damian, moving in step with him as they left to one of the corridors. Neither of them said a word for several minutes as they walked through the hallways, entering unlocked rooms to see if there was anything useful or salvageable in them.

"Found another battle scene. No bodies, bulletholes, those acid holes... same shit," Jake announced over the COM.

"Nothing on our end," Damian reported as they left another room without any luck.

"What do you think?" Akira asked him, her depolarized visor facing his way.

"Honestly? This place creeps the hell out of me, just look at it," Damian answered honestly, gesturing at the hallways with his free arm. The place was indeed in shambles. Speckles of dust hung in the air and the minimal amount of light they managed to bring back online was only making the place look worse as the barely lit pale lamps cast dark shadows in some areas. One lamp at the end of the corridor flickered in an annoying manner and Damian was suddenly reminded of those horror films he used to watch when he was a kid, despite the fact that his parents told him not to do so. To this day he had this... deep anxiety of flickering lights.

With a shudder that he managed to suppress, he turned to face his companion. "What about you?"

"I'll be honest as well," she began, pausing as she looked into another room, "I'm worried. Jake isn't the only one who has heard of something like this. I've heard of a similar case as well..." she trailed off.

Damian raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. "You've heard of it?"

"Yes. One of the outer colonies went dark after the end of the war. When our forces arrived at the scene they expected the Covenant, not empty buildings, empty streets, and the absence of civilians. The colony had simply vanished. However, several miles out of the colony, they'd found a large crater, possibly from a nuclear weapon as radiation was present. They never found anyone though, not even a trace," she finished her tale, her eyes showing a decent amount of worry in them.

"You think the same thing happened here," I said. That was a statement, not a question.

"Yes I do think so, although here the people didn't go quietly. I've also noticed that these disappearances began around ten years ago, shortly after the war," she speculated.

"You think there's a connection?" he asked her, "I doubt it was what remained of the Covenant though."

"I cant be sure of that. As for the Covenant, I know that they aren't responsible. They tend to be more open in their acts of aggression."

"True. Well, let's all hope we find something in the database, it might help us shed more light on this little problem of ours," he said the last part with a bit of a dramatic flair, causing Akira to chuckle at that.

* * *

"Aww man, why does Damian always gets to hang out with Akira?" Jimmy muttered.

"Hah! What was that? What did I hear now?" Brass interrupted him from behind, wearing a shit-eating grin behind his depolarized visor. Kyle snickered in the background.

"It was nothing, now fuck off!" Jimmy replied angrily.

"Kyle, what did he say? I don't believe I heard it right," Jake turned his head to face Kyle, still wearing that grin. To make matters worse for Jimmy, Kyle returned the same grin to Brass. It was well known that Jake didn't have much against Kyle, other than him being the FNG, Jimmy being his least favorite one.

"I believe that he mentioned Akira, something about her not hanging out with him I think," Kyle feigned ignorance, suppressing a snicker.

"Aww, wittle Jimmy likes our resident sniper?" Brass asked him mockingly. Jimmy bristled uncomfortably under his grin.

"Its not like that, I just want to get some tips on sniping..." he said lamely, to which Brass barked a loud laugh.

"Meh, don't even think about going there kid. Damian and Akira have a...thing going on," Brass clarified.

"Really? How do you know?" Kyle interjected, curiosity in his voice.

"Heh, it was around seven years ago, maybe eight. We had shore leave on one of the remaining planets after several battles against the brutes. We had a large party on our last day there and on the next day when we were supposed to leave and board our ship, guess who was late as hell?" Jake explained, a grin forming on his face when he said the last part.

"Damian and Akira," Kyle answered, a lesser version of Jake's grin forming on his face.

"Damn right. I don't think I've ever seen Sarge get so angry. Ever. Really, I thought his head might explode. It was so embarrassing because the whole freaking ship was waiting just for us. Sarge went to go get Damian, and I, being the helpful soldier that I am, joined him to kick his ass," at this point Brass started laughing his ass off.

"What happened?" Jimmy asked, unable to fend off the grin that gradually built up.

"Oh, that was, perhaps, the best day of my life," he said after he calmed down enough to continue speaking, pausing to add dramatic effect. "We found them both in Damian's room, about as naked as the day they were born. Sarge went absolutely fucking ballistic on them. He didn't even give them enough time to get dressed, not to talk about the massive hang-over they had also. He chased them down all the way to the space elevator while they'd barely managed to grab some bed sheets to cover themselves," he then burst into more laughter, this time joined by both of the younger soldiers.

"Holy crap!" Kyle remarked as he regained control over his voice.

"Hell yeah, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. All the stares they got in the elevator... and the verbal bitch-slapping they got from Sarge once they got on the ship. He canceled their next shore leave but it didn't really help since some people on the ship told us that they screwed around like rabbits there anyway. At least that time they didn't oversleep..." Brass finished, a fond smile on his face.

"So what, are they together?" Jimmy asked.

"Dunno, they got this weird on-off thing going on," Jake replied with a shrug, signifying that he didn't really care. "Don't mention this story to them though. Damian will probably punch you and me in the face and Akira will probably kill us all, got it?" he said, his face a mask of mock seriousness.

"Yes sir," Kyle replied with a casual salute.

"As much as this conversation is amusing and somewhat nostalgic, we do have a job to do. Shit, I think we missed like around ten rooms while we talked," Brass remarked.

"Eight actually, I counted," Jimmy pointed out, earning himself a blank stare from the older ODST.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you were telling a story and I know how you get when you're interru-" he wasn't able to finish, as a loud shuffling sound was heard above them. The three of them quickly raised their weapons and aimed at the ceiling. The deafening silence was crushing them as they stood still as statues, waiting for something to happen.

"What the fuck was that?" Kyle whispered through their COM frequency instead of using the speakers, fearing that whatever caused the sound was listening to them.

"You're asking me?" Jake replied, whispering as well even if there wasn't a need to do so. Just then they heard the sound again, more clearly this time. It sounded as if something was moving above them, through the ceiling... and it was moving away from them.

"After it!" Brass barked as they ran after whatever caused that sound. They chased the surprisingly fast... whatever it was, as it moved through the ceiling. "What's it doing in the ceiling?" Jake yelled as they turned into another corridor and chased it.

"I think it's in the ventilation shafts, that's the only way whatever it is can move through the ceiling!" Kyle replied, his voice sounding ragged from the run. They continued to run after whatever it was, colliding with Damian and Akira when they'd turned into another corridor. "The fuck is that?" was the first thing Damian said as he looked at the ceiling, obviously hearing the sound of the creature, for it couldn't be anything else since humans couldn't fit into a freaking ventilation shaft let alone move so fast at the same time. "Hell if I know, its getting away!" Jake yelled to him as they ran past them. Damian and Akira shared a glance before they ran after them. They chased after the creature for another minute before their chase ended where they hadn't expected it to. Whatever moved through those shafts had finally reached a point where they couldn't follow it.

The sound of it moving through the shaft gradually lessened before it eventually disappeared, leaving the slightly winded and now more worried than before group of ODST's staring at the welded door that lead to the third floor.

* * *

Cha'kun'da was rather anxious. He'd heeded Nik'ah'kum's order and gathered the hunting party. All six of them, with the exception of Nichire and Nik'ah'kum gathered in a desolate clearing in the jungle and waited for their arrival but by now Cha'kun'da began to worry. The others also displayed some measure of weariness, as Nichire was not one to keep them waiting but like Nichire had said to them once, patience was important to the hunt and those who did not have it, died young. Although they knew that they had to wait patiently, they could not but worry; Nichire was never late.

While they waited for their Leader, they silently conversed among each other and Cha'kun'da silently listened in. The most common topic were the Oomans. Most of the hunting party felt that they should hunt them while a couple shared Nichire's view on the situation. Cha'kun'da couldn't actually disagree with both groups. While he did want to hunt the Oomans, as the tales that were told about them were sometimes grand, he knew that Nichire was somewhat right, that secrecy was their strength and if the Oomans became aware of them, future hunts would not be available.

All thoughts and conversations came to halt when Nik'ah'kum stumbled into the clearing and collapsed as soon as he saw them. Cha'kun'da was certain that he saw the vibrant green of their blood on his shoulder. The group quickly approached him to helm him on his feet. One of the older Yautja, Ee'vara, rolled Nik'ah'kum onto his back and inspected the wound.

"Ooman burner," he stated, causing the others to start chattering amongst each other. He removed Nik'ah'kum's mask to reveal his dazed gaze.

"Ki'cte!" One of Nichire's main supporters, Ave'gaar, barked, silencing the others. He was one of the most experienced warriors they had and he commanded the younger ones' respect. "What has happened?" He asked Nik'ah'kum as he approached him.

Nik'ah'kum simply reached into his pouch with a shaky hand in response, pulling out a Yautja mask. Silence descended upon the group as they watched the young Yautja raise the mask, offering it to Ave'gaar with a shaking hand. Everyone froze as soon as they inspected the mask, two burner holes through it and the easily identified Yautja blood covering it.

It was without a doubt Nichire's mask. Nik'ah'kums masked gaze settled on the older warrior before he uttered two hoarse words. "Pyode Amedha." Soft meat. The silence was simply deafening and Cha'kun'da's eyes widened behind his mask, already deciphering Nik'ah'kum's plan and realizing what he had done. Ave'gaar arched his back and unleashed a roar that held all his fury.

"C'jit!" Ave'gaar roared, now raising Nik'ah'kum roughly to his feet. "How did this happen?" he roared into his face. "How?" he roared again, this time unsheathing his Ki'cti-pa.

"Nichire was watching the Oomans but they spotted him and attacked. He fought them but he fell, I attempted to retrieve him but i failed... this is all i managed to take without dying," he said hoarsely, gesturing at the mask. Ave'gaar watched him silently for several moments. "Coward," he eventually spat, dropping the wounded Yautja to the ground and sheathing his Ki'cti-pa. "Do not treat his wounds. May it be a reminder of his cowardice," he spat, a constant growl emanating from his throat. "And he will be the Hult'ah for the remainder of the Hunt."

Ave'gaar faced the group, who all looked at him in anticipation, the sound of mandibles clicking could be heard. "Nichire's path ended here," he finally stated. "but," he paused there, "Dtai'k-dte sa-de nav'g-kon dtain'aun bpide," he finished as the other roared in agreement. 'The fight begun will not end until the end.' Cha'kun'da mused. The decision has been made. The Pyode Amedha began the fight and the Yautja will end it. He watched Nik'ah'kum as he continued to sit on the ground, watching the others. He saw the pleased and the the clicking of his mendibles in anticipation. He felt disgust rise within him and his contempt for the Kwei Nik'ah'kum grow. He respected Nichire as he was a great Leader and he learned much from him. For his Dhi'ki-de to be brought by the hands of one such as Nik'ah'kum... such an uninspiring way to meet the Dark Warrior...

Ave'gaar gave a bark to get their attention, forcing everyone to face their new Leader, as he was the most experienced of them, now that Nichire was gone. "M-di H'chak!" he growled, raising a fist into the air. "M-di H'chak!" the others repeated in a chorused roar, raising their fists into the air as well.

The Hunt has begun.

* * *

_**DelVarO's A/N: **_Ooh damn, the shit is about to hit the fan so prepare yourselves! Heh, i really had fun writing this chapter and I hope the Yautja language didnt confuse you too much. Honestly, im too lazy to write the translation here, even though i translated a few of the words in the chapter, but if you're really curious just ask and i will provide it in

the next chapter, which this time will come within two weeks (i mean it this time!). Damn, im still a bit giddy from writing this chapter, simply because the interesting

stuff will begin next chapter! Thank you for reading my story and double thanks to all the reviewers! I gladly accept constructive criticism, suggestions, idea and just

your simple opinions (It can be negative as well). Leave them all in a review or a PM, whatever suits you :P. Thanks for reading and until next time, Delvaro out!


	7. Shit Hits The Fan

**_BraK3R's A/N: _**I don't really have much to say ehehehee, enjoy this awesome chapter and please review!

**_DelVaro's A/N:_**Oh yeah. Really, im on a roll. Updating two stories in one day!Heh, im happy now. Now the story is about to get interesting... I hope you liked the last chapter because in this chapter the shit is about to hit the fan! A large thank you to all the people who loved this story, reviewed and placed it on alert! I'm glad you liked it :) Now, enjoy the brand new chapter!

**Chapter 7 - Shit Hits The Fan**

**1145 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Research Base Alpha**

"Have you seen it?" Leone barked the question that everyone else was itching to ask.

"No sir, we have no idea what it was," Brass replied for everyone. A moment of silence descended on the group as they pondered what it could have been.

"Uh," Kyle broke the silence, causing everyone to turn their heads at him. "well, the vents can't be that large so I doubt it was a human. Not even a grunt without it's methane canister would fit in there. I guess it was an animal or something," he quickly explained, feeling somewhat nervous from their stares.

"That is a logical conclusion," Akira supported his statement.

"Maybe, but how did it get into the ventilation systems? They're supposed to be sealed for safety concerns," Jimmy spoke, adding his voice to the conversation.

"What concerns me is the fact that it ran to the third floor. For all we know that thing might've been the reason why they sealed the doors in the first place," Sean spoke his mind.

"True, but the only thing we know about this thing so far is that it is really fast. I bet it would easily outrun us in an open area," Damian added.

"Alright," Leone spoke, his rough voice silencing everyone. "the only way for us to find out what it was, is to go down to the third floor. Let me remind you that there are four floors

in this base and we don't know what's down there so I would rather not go down there without further intel," he explained, getting several nods in understandment.

"Well, it certainly fits the mission parameters. You said that they had trouble with the local 'wildlife'. If there are animals in the ventilation shafts it's entirely possible that these things are the troublemakers," Jake said, leaning against a table.

"I wouldn't count on it," Leone interrupted. "If animals had killed everyone, there would've been bodies, both human and animal. Let me remind you that there was a full garrison of marines here so they wouldn't have gone quiet," the sergeant explained, causing some murmurs in the group. "Above that, Mary found out that most of the system here was wiped."

"Cole Protocol?" Damian asked, dreading the answer. If the Cole Protocol was initiated that meant that whatever wiped everyone out here was fully sentient, maybe even space faring. One thing for sure, whatever happened here wasn't caused by the Jiralnae(brutes).

"No," Leone replied, his answer causing a few raised eyebrows. Why would anyone wipe out the system? "It was more... haphazard as Mary told me. It was very crude work since there were some things that weren't wiped. Most of it is useless but she is currently trying to salvage whatever she can. Maybe whatever she finds will shed some light on the situation." Minds spun in overdrive as Leone finished speaking. Some of them reached the same conclusion. Whoever had wiped the system didn't want them to find something. Damian noticed several security cameras, which were offline now, and he suspected that they could've caught whatever happened here on tape. It left him with some hope, as the mystery was both killing him and creeping him out.

"Alright, there are two other bases on the planet and we still haven't checked them out. The survivors of Alpha base might have went there. Right now, we need to report to the Captain," Leone explained, reminding them that they might walk through the jungle again this day. Leone opened a COM channel with the ship, followed by the rest of the squad who joined the frequency. "This is Echo Leader reporting in."

"This is the Captain of the New Age, report," came the reply, though it was somewhat strained.

"There's nothing here sir. Alpha base is devoid of life, system was wiped. We suspect sentient beings involved. We still have two more bases to search, we might find survivors there," Leone explained, quick and to the point.

"I see... check the scanners again, we're not going to take any risks!" the captain said the last part to someone else.

"Sir?" Leone asked. Something was going on in orbit.

"Its nothing you should worry yourself about. We just have some weird activity here, it could just be –oh shit!" the captain shouted the last part, quickly followed by a loud crashing sound, followed by a muffled explosion. The squad tensed, Jimmy and Kyle nearly jumping in surprise. "-hit! Shields... -percents, we wont... -hit," what they heard was garbled and filled with static. It was completely incomprehensible but they didn't need to be geniuses to know that their ship was just hit. "Mayday, mayday, this is the New Age, were going do-" there was another muffled explosion and then pure static as the frequency went down.

They all stood there in silence, looking at each other, some of them wearing horrified expressions, some scowling grimly. After a few seconds, like a well-oiled machine, they all grabbed their gear at the same time and rushed out of the facility in top speed.

* * *

**1145 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / UNSC Frigate New Age / Orbit / Planet Venatio**

Everything was going perfectly fine, mostly boring. They'd just spent their time scanning the planet, looking for any kind of signal that might lead them to any survivors and waited until Echo Squad reported in. It was pretty much a SSDD experience, until one of his crew members, the one who operated the sensors, woke him out of his thougts.

"Sir! We detected something on our sensors," she half-shouted. Captain Richard Stanford straightened himself in his chair and cleared his throat.

"What is it?" he asked, wondering if something interesting was going to happen now, both becoming cheerful at these thoughts and anxious. In his career he'd participated in only one space battle, and back then he hadn't commanded a ship.

"Our scanners detected some kind of energy signature in Venatio's orbit. Its faint, barely there but we got it. The worst part of it is that it's moving towards us, sir."

"Get me a picture," Stanford ordered. He turned his gaze to one of the screens, dreading to see a brute ship, only to see the vast blackness of space when the screen flickered to the signature. A minute passed where no one said a thing until the Captain broke the silence. "Are you sure its there?"

"Positive," she said with determination in her voice.

"Sir, incoming COM channel from Echo Squad," the COM officer announced.

"Patch them through," Richard said, not tearing his eyes away from the screen.

"This is Echo Leader reporting in," came in the gruff voice of the sergeant.

"This is the Captain of the New Age, report."

"There is nothing here sir. Alpha base is devoid of life, system was wiped. We suspect sentient beings involved. We still have two more bases to search, we might find survivors there," Leone said, causing a few raised eyebrows on the bridge. This was starting to look bad.

"Sir, what about the signature?" the woman asked, sending him a questioning glance.

"I see... check the scanners again, we're not taking any risks!" the Captain ordered the woman, who returned a nod and got back to work.

"Sir?" the sergeant asked. The woman, he had to commend her for the speed she worked with, scanned again but after several moments shook her head. "Its still there and its getting closer."

"Its nothing you should worry yourself about. We just have some weird activity here, it could just be..." he trailed off, eyes widening to the size of dishes. The empty spot that was once on the screen turned into a ship. It was like watching someone pouring water over the ship, washing away the cloak. The ship was rather small, being around half the size of a frigate. For some reason, the shape of the ship reminded him of a fish. The next thing he noticed was the pair of brightly glowing spots on the sides of the ship. "Oh shit!" he exclaimed when he realized what those bright spots were. It was already too late to give any orders as the enemy ship opened fire. Stanford's eyes widened even further when instead of the all-familiar plasma torpedoes a pair of bright blue – huge in size – plasma bolts flew at them at great speeds. Moments later he found himself on the floor as the ship was rocked from the collision. He turned his head to the fuzzy image of the enemy ship and saw that it was charging a third shot, this time from the center of the ship, where a cannon-like device could be seen.

"We've been hit!" he heard someone shout above the blaring alarm klaxons, knowing that it was a pretty obvious statement. "Shields are at eleven percents. We wont be able to take another hit," someone else added. Realization dawned upon the bridge crew at how bad the situation was. Grim and worried glances were exchanged in a matter of seconds before the Captain opened a COM channel.

"Mayday, mayday, this is the New Age, we're going down -" he didn't manage to finish the distress call as the enemy ship unleashed another shot. This time it wasn't an oversized plasma bolt, but a beam. It made its way to the frigate in amazing speeds, hitting the ship in the blink of an eye and hitting the ship as if the remaining shields weren't even there. This time a huge explosion rocked the ship and it went dark on the bridge for a few second before the emergency lights turned on. Everyone slowly stood up, quickly inspecting the damage. "Sir, we... lost the engines. The reactors are down. We're running on steam here. Lost contact with the rear section of the ship..." there was a pause. "Sir, we've been cleaved in half."

Stanford looked at each of his crew-mates before giving an order to evacuate the ship, and with that, they ran out of the bridge, making their way to the lifepods. Unfortunately, in the third hit the screens that showed the enemy ship went dark, leaving the occupants on the bridge unable to see the ship charging up another salvo of plasma, unable to see how the ship unleashed one of its enormous plasma bolts at the forward section of the New Age.

The unknown ship remained hovering there, above the remains of the forward section of the human frigate and then, just like it has arrived, the ship cloaked and disappeared without a trace.

When Echo Squad made it outside they were greeted by a horrifying sight. Pieces of the New Age and other debris rained down into the atmosphere above them, giving the appearance that it was raining fire. Damian wasn't sure if he was a horrible person or not, since he found the sight to be quite beautiful in a kind of morbid and weird way. Within seconds, realization dawned upon them and the awful reality of their situation began sinking in heavily. They were now stuck here, alongside whatever had just destroyed their warship.

"Mayday, Mayday, this is Foxtrot Lima Tango Zero-Niner, we're going down, we're going down!" a voice broke through their COM and Damian raised his head to see a bumblebee lifepod fly above them and disappear behind the jungle tree-tops. There was a muffled crashing sound seconds later and silence after that. He looked at the direction the lifepod had crashed in, seeing the pack of birdlike creatures taking to the skies.

"Move out!" Leone barked and broke into a run towards the lifepod. There wasn't a need to tell them to prepare themselves; the squad as a whole had already removed the safeties from their weapons.

They quickly followed the sergeant into the jungle where they carefully, but at fast speeds, moved through the foliage and other obstacles the jungle provided them. The lifepod had crashed around two miles from their position. As they ran, Damian's mind was running on overdrive. What could destroy up a UNSC warship in mere seconds? With the reverse engineered shielding technology they'd gotten from the Covenant, the new UNSC shielding was superior to most Covenant shielding. The only thing that might've done that would've been a Covenant Supercarrier or a Super Destroyer, but the chances of a either ship being here was slim to none.

About halfway to the lifepod, Leone ordered them to stop with a raised fist. Damian wondered why they'd stopped but seconds later he understood why. Gunfire echoed through the jungle, coming from the direction of the lifepod. He heard Brass mouth a loud "Shit!" before they broke into another run, much faster this time.

"Move it, move it! Double time!" Leone shouted, urging them on.

They kept running, stumbling once or twice on some roots that stuck out of the ground or crushing bushes that got in their way. They sounds of gunfire were lessening with every minute and after a two minutes or so, they were completely gone. As they were nearing the crash site they gradually slowed down until eventually they were carefully and silently walking through the foliage. Moments later the crash site was in their sight.

The bumblebee lifepod was overturned, the front side of it crashed into one of great trees of the jungle. There were no life signs in the vicinity. Damian looked through the scope of his BR55 to see if there was anyone there but the only things he saw were – he gulped at the sight, swallowing the dryness in his throat – dead bodies. They slowly moved around the crash site, searching for whatever had killed the marines, weapons ready.

When they didn't find any trace of hostiles, or anything alive, in the vicinity, they approached the crashed lifepod. "Establish a perimeter," Leone ordered. The Kids, Mary, Sean and Akira left to do just that. Damian approached the lifepod with Sarge and Jake. The first thing he noted was the way the dead bodies lied all around, with empty rounds scattered all around. There were five bodies lying around, two of which had smoking holes in their chests, a third one was missing his head. Overall, it was a pretty gruesome scene.

"Pilot's dead. Three more dead inside," Brass said as he inspected the smoking lifepod.

"I don't like this," Damian said quietly, looking from body to body. He was a helljumper. He was a bloody special forces soldier, not some damned detective.

"Me neither. Just look at this," Leone gestured at the scene. "They were shooting in all directions, as if they were surrounded but... there's no blood, no bodies, nothing. It's as if these marines never even hit whatever had attacked them, unlike their assailants."

Brass was inspecting one of the dead bodies, one that had a smoking hole in it's chest. "Its not regular Covie weapons either," he added. "most of their weapons just burn or sear. This one both burned and blew up his insides," he said grimly, raising his head to look at the surrounding jungle. Damian joined him. Whatever attacked theses marines was still out there and it was apparent that they had advanced weaponry as well. Their situation was just the proverbial shit that hit the fan.

"Hey," Brass said in a hushed voice. "don't you have the feeling that you're being watched?" Damian thought about it and had to suppress a shiver when he felt that particular feeling. He gave him a nod and shouldered his rifle. There wasn't any harm in being ready for whatever was out there.

"Alright, there's nothing we can do here. Let's gather their weapons and ammo and see if there are any other survivors. Regroup," Leone barked into their COM frequency. The rest of the squad stepped out of the foliage and proceeded to gather the weapons and ammo. The dead wouldn't need them now. As the Squad was gathering supplies Akira asked a question that caused every single one of them to freeze. "Where's Jimmy?"

Damian turned his attention from his dog-tag collecting to do a head count and to his horror, Akira was right.

Jimmy was no where to be seen.

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_**DelVarO's A/N: **_A cliffy! I believe its the first one i used in this story. How lovely. Poor Jimmy, i bet you already know what is going to happen with him, you evil bastards. I know you want him to die, everyone does. Its always the Jimmy who dies. Heh, that's actually a private joke with one of my friends, who calls himself Jimmy. I used to annoy him with the fact that people named Jimmy always died in the movies. Anyway, im getting off-track here! As for the "Unknown" ship. I'm not really sure of the sizes and everything and for all purposes, i made that ship up on the fly, since i never saw that ship. I only read the AVP novel and it was mentioned that the Yautja ship resembled a fish and that it was small but large enough to house a whole Yautja hunting party, which is around a dozen or more people. I honestly have no idea of the size but i believe that i used the ship mentioned in the novel. If anyone knows something about the ship, please inform me! I also saw some weird Predator comic books... like Predator vs The Terminator, or Predator vs Batman... i mean, its a little weird to see that stuff. Especially the Predator vs Superman and the Predator vs Justice League. Although i did find out some quite amazing information about the Yautja, which i will hold onto until the right moment. :P This chapter is ridiculously short, which is highly annoying for me, since i know that i can do much better but i had only several hours to write this, and as i was tired i decided to cut the chapter in half, the other half being the next one. Hey, dont blame me for that. A guy needs sleep you know... Anyway, i hope i will manage to write the next chapter soon enough. And i did keep my promise of making sure to update within two weeks, didnt I? :P Thanks you for reading this! I'm glad to know that you enjoy reading my work. I gladly accept constructive criticism, ideas, suggestions and your opinion on the story. Hell, you can just rant about something you read here, ill be happy to hear it :P. Until next time, Delvaro out!


	8. Running Blind

**_BraK3R's A/N: _**Hey guys, sorry it took me a while to get this one out. I've been busy with stuff, hope you enjoy :P

**DelVarrO's A/N: **Hey, I'm back! Yes, i am alive so you dont have to worry about me being dead. Like i have said earlier (month ago i think) i had a series of exams and i was pretty busy preparing for them so thats why i was delayed for so long. Anyway, once i was sober enough to write i still had some other small business to attend to but today i found the time to write and here ya go. We have a new chapter. To my delight, this chapter is longer than usual, which i love doing. Dont know why. I just do. Anyway, i wont delay you any further as i assume that many have waiting for this chapter since i left it on a cliffhanger (:O)! So have fun reading!

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**Chapter 8 - Running Blind**

**1146 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Echo Squad**

"Echo Eight, report!" Leone barked into the open COM channel but received no reply. He looked at his squad and gave a simple signal with his hand. As soon as they saw it they all raised their weapons and moved to his position. "Echo Eight, report," Leone tried again but still received no reply. "Damn it Jimmy, say something!"

"Where the fuck is he..." Damian heard Kyle mutter. Whatever had killed the marines, was still here and if Jimmy's disappearance was any clue, then they were close. The squad silently moved to his location, the sergeant repeatedly asking Jimmy to say anything. A sudden, loud rumble caused them to stop in their tracks. A large shadow passed over them, which caused them to look up to see the rear section of the _New Dawn _crashing down in a burning ball of flames, leaving a small trail of debris falling behind it. To Damian, the scene was breathtaking, both because in some morbid, sick way it looked magnificent and because of all the people that died aboard. It passed above them in seconds and soon disappeared from view, only to be heard crashing down miles away with a loud roar of crushing metal and explosions.

"Over here guys..." came Jimmy's voice to their right. Surprising the squad, everyone turned to that direction, guns pointed. The voice was hoarse, weak, barely above a whisper.

"Jimmy?" Leone asked quietly but still, no response. The only possible explanation he could think of was rather grim; Jimmy was wounded and was unable to use their COM channel.

"Over here... help..." they heard it again, closer. Leone gave them a nod and they moved to Jimmy, slowly and carefully. It might be an ambush.

Several seconds later Sean gave them a signal to stop and everyone turned their attention to him. Damian approached him, flanked by Brass and Akira. When they reached him they saw him crouching on the ground fingering a small patch of dirt, soaked by something red... Damian immediately tensed and he knew that Brass and Akira did the same.

"Blood," Sean confirmed their suspicion. "Still Warm."

"Fuck," Brass muttered.

"Help me..." Jimmy's voice could be heard once again. The odd thing was, the voice came exactly from their position, as if he was right there before their eyes but they couldn't see him.

"What the fuck..." Brass said under his breath as he raised his weapon and looked around. This was becoming very, very fucking creepy.

"I think we shoul-" he was interrupted by a black object dropping right in front of him and into the blood-soaked ground. "Gah! Fuck!" he cried as he jumped back, aiming his carbine at what turned out to be an ODST helmet. Jimmy's helmet...

"Shit..." Kyle said aloud, pretty much voicing everyone's thoughts. Brass carefully approached the helmet while everyone was looking around, Kyle nearly jumping at any foreign sound. Once he was right by the helmet he crouched and reached out with one hand while holding his weapon with the other and picked up the helmet.

What no one expected was something to slide out of the helmet and drop to the ground with a sickening squelch. They all turned to look at the sight that chilled their bones as Jimmy's head rolled on the ground, a permanent expression of terror etched on his face.

Brass dropped the helmet and took several steps back until he had his back to Damian, who could hear the man's heavy breathing.

"Oh god, oh god, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" Kyle said breathlessly as he stared at the disembodied head of his friend.

"Get a hold of yourself trooper!" Leone hissed as he grabbed Kyle firmly to keep him in line. It was apparent that the kid was panicking.

They continued to stare at the head before something else happened, something that would be scarred into their minds for the rest of their lives.

"Help me... over here..." Jimmy's voice said, once again very, very close to them. This sent Kyle over the edge as he swung his weapon frantically in all directions, looking for something to expel his frustration into. It was obvious to everyone that Jimmy could no longer speak...

"What. The. Fuck?!" Brass said in anguish. Damian bristled all over and goosebumps rippled throughout his entire body. Every eye in the squad, save for Leone's, was wide in shock and fear, and they all agreed with Brass's exclamation.

Unfortunately, they never had the time to find out how Jimmy had died because at that exact moment, the sound of breaking branches and ruffled leaves interrupted all thought processes as a headless body crashed onto the ground right in front of Kyle. With the dismemberment of his only friend in Echo Squad, and the added shock of seeing Jimmy's headless corpse crash right in front of him, finally sent Echo Seven over the edge. He raised his weapon and aimed it up and unleashed a barrage of bullets from his SMG. Mary joined him soon after, believing that he'd seen something. After several seconds they both stopped to see that the only thing they had accomplished were a couple of mauled branches. Kyle was breathing hard, leaning against a tree, his SMG still help upwards. Leone approached him silently and delivered a vicious punch to his helmeted face.

"Are you fucking insane? You just told the whole freaking jungle that we're here!" the sergeant shouted, knowing that there was no point to keeping quiet anymore.

Just then they heard an odd sound. A strange clicking gurgle, somewhere between a growl and purr, coming from above them. They all froze at the sound of the strange noise, not one of them daring to move for a few seconds before they slowly inspected the area to see that nothing was there. Whatever had made the sound was hidden well. Out of the corner of his eye, Damian spotted something strange on Akira's head. He turned to fully face her and his eyes widened to the size of saucers when he saw three red dots in triangular formation moving over her head, coming to a stop right at her temple. At that moment, he simply acted and right as he did, all hell broke loose.

It was as if time slowed down for him. He ran at her in full speed, saw her slowly turning to the sound of his rushed footsteps, heard an odd 'whoosh!' sound and a flash of blue somewhere above him and then he just tackled her out of the way. While that move probably saved Akira's life, the large blue plasma bolt – it couldn't be anything else – missed Damian's torso by inches and impacted the ground right by his legs. The plasma bolt then exploded once it hit the ground, much to Damian's surprise, showering his legs with unbearable heat and sending him flying ass over head. He landed painfully on his head several feet away from Akira's position, legs smoking. At that moment everything seemed to go to hell.

Through his blurry vision and brain-clouded pain he saw several of his squadmates, he couldn't tell who exactly though, firing at something above them. The occasional blue plasma bolt flew past or near the squad, exploding upon impact with the ground. He wanted to help his team, but he had lost his grip on his rifle and he wasn't sure he could aim properly.

His vision was suddenly filled by a black shape. He shook his head to gain better vision and to his amazement, it cleared just enough to see Akira's face behind her depolarized visor, looking at him with fearful and worried eyes.

"Get up!" she screamed at him, her voice suddenly breaking through the cacophony of his surroundings. She started pulling him to his feet and he growled through the pain his slightly burned legs caused him. At least he could still stand.

She started pulling him away to the squad, who were firing wildly into the trees. He risked a look back only to see nothing. What were they shooting at? He pulled out his handgun as he couldn't see any trace of his rifle and finally managed to regain proper balance enough to walk by himself.

"Retreat!" Leone shouted, urging them away from the jungle. At that moment another plasma bolt ('Why are they so big?' he thought to himself) blasted the ground just a few feet away from the sergeant, leveling glassed dirt of slightly molten rock at him. Damian risked another look back, to see where the shot came from only to, once again, see nothing.

Once Akira and Damian caught up with the rest of the squad they threw all caution to the wind and broke into a run, occasionally turning around and letting off a few shots to the direction the plasma bolts came from.

"What the fuck are we shooting at?" Damian shouted through his gritting teeth as he jumped over a fallen tree and dived into the underbrush once he heard the telltale sound of a plasma bolt coming his way. He stood back up, pistol aimed and released several random shots to the direction the attack came from. He couldn't keep fighting like this. What the fuck was he even fighting?

"I saw one of the assholes!" Sean shouted as he ran beside Leone. "Big guys, cloaked!"

"Brutes?" Mary asked aloud as she took cover behind a tree as another plasma bolt sailed above her.

"I don't think so! These guys are on the fucking trees!" Sean replied, shooting at the tree tops from his carbine, his rounds tearing several branches apart.

Damian nodded to Akira who sent him a questioning glance as she ran beside him. He turned around briefly and released four more shots into the trees. At least now he knew where to shoot. All that was left was to hope that he hit something.

"Fuck it, just run!" Jake shouted over their gunshots. It took several seconds but everyone wholeheartedly agreed. They couldn't fight like this and at this rate they wouldl be picked off one by one. Jimmy was proof of that. He had just been a couple dozen feet away from them and they hadn't heard a single thing at all. How could you rip someone's head off in a completely silent manner? That unnerved Damian greatly.

They continued to run, taking cover whenever another overgrown plasma bolt sailed by, often too close for comfort. He wasn't sure how long they had been actually running for now, but he took note that Leone was at least leading them to the direction of the base which gave him some comfort atleast. The worrying part though, was that whatever or whoever was chasing them was still after them. Whatever they were, they definitely were not brutes...he was sure of that. Brutes were noticeably less subtle than this in their offensive maneuvers.

He suddenly heard an odd whirling sound, accompanied by a small, barely audible hum. He turned around just in time to see something small whirl its way towards his face. By instinct he dropped to the ground just as the thing, which he now saw as disk-shaped, sped over him. He quickly rolled from his back and followed its trajectory to see that it was heading for Leone.

"Sarge!" he shouted in warning. The sergeant turned around to the sound of the shout and saw the whirling disk coming his way. Showing his decades of experience and his still-amazingly quick reflexes, he simply sidestepped the disk just as it was upon him, allowing it to sail just inches away from his neck and into the tree behind him.

Damian wasn't sure what he was expecting but he didn't expect the disk to _cut through the damn tree_. There was a loud 'crack!' and buzzing sound for a split second before the disk emerged from the other side of the tree as if it was never there. Both Damian and Leone remained rooted in place, dumbfounded as they stared at the tree, which slowly dropped to the side with a loud creak. Both Leone and Damian looked back at the disk which took an unexpectedly sharp turn, making its way back to them.

"What the fuck is this thing?" He shouted in outrage, unable to accept what he saw.

Leone rolled to the side and dodged the disk and Damian, from his position on the ground, simply rolled aside as soon as he saw the disk whirling its way to him. He barely managed to dodge the odd weapon this time as it impacted inches away from him, sending large pieces of the ground into the air as it bounced off the dirt and then continued on its way through _another _small tree as if nothing happened. Damian stood up and followed the disk to see it disappear into the high branches of the tree where the plasma bolts came from. He aimed his handgun in that direction and opened fire.

He was turning around from the series of random potshots when he felt an intense pain in his left bicep as his whole arm was sent lurching forward. The pain that accompanied that movement told him that whatever he had gotten hit with could probably tear off his arm if he was unlucky enough. Unfortunately, he stumbled and landed painfully on his face. He looked at his arm and saw a large, thin spike protruding out of it. His first thought was 'a spiker!', which would've confirmed that they were indeed fighting brutes but at second glance he saw that it was longer, made from a different alloy and wasn't superheated.

He felt someone's hand grab him under the armpit and pull him to his feet. He looked up to see Brass pulling him forward, firing his assault rifle one-handed. Damian got to his feet and followed Brass. Leone threw a frag grenade into the jungle. Akira was unleashing a long series of shots from her handgun. Kyle was frantically spraying bullets into the tree tops. Mary added another grenade.

Sean was reloading at that moment and wasn't fast enough to see a plasma bolt sailing through the air. He managed to activate the PDG just in time. The round shield sprang up just as the bolt impacted it but to his dismay, the shield failed the moment the plasma bolt made contact and hit him right in his right shoulder. Damian watched in horror as Sean was sent spinning through the air to land with a thud on the ground and stop moving after that.

Brass ran up to him and lifted him over his shoulder and continued running with a single shouted phrase. "Just run! Fucking run like hell!"

They proceeded to do just that. They continued to run, this time not bothering to slow down enough to shoot back at them. They just ran, veering aside to throw their pursuers off course, which didn't work, and sometimes running in a zigzag pattern, which did help in some way. Leone eventually lead them to a large stone wall that belonged to the small plateau that was near the base. Damian felt some relief that they were getting closer. That relief was crushed when a plasma bolt zipped right in front of his face, causing his HUD to blur for a moment.

"In here!" Leone barked and Damian saw him standing in front of a small cave. They quickly filed inside, slowing down a bit as the cave entrance wasn't large enough to allow two of them to enter at the same time. Once they were inside they all crashed down to the rocky floor as Brass took out his shotgun and crouched near the cave mouth.

They sat in silence for several minutes, no one saying a thing, everyone just catching their breaths. Akira stood up after several minutes and joined Jake, taking her sniper rifle and using it to look outside.

"FUCK!" Kyle shouted, partially in rage and partially in dismay, punching the wall to let off some steam.

"Shut the fuck up!" Brass shouted back, glaring at the young man through his polarized visor.

"Fuck you! Jimmy is dead..." he said, more quietly this time.

"Shit happens, people die," Jake said simply. Kyle didn't say anything after that.

Mary sent a glance over at Damian from where she was tending to Sean's wounds and motioned him over. Damian stood up with a grunt and walked over to her, his legs feeling wobbly from all the running and the small burns they'd suffered. Sean's shoulder was a smoldered, still-smoking mess. He frowned at the burned hole in the middle of his right shoulder, exposing burned meat and some scorched bone.

"Give me your arm," she said to him evenly. He did as he was told, already prepared to what would come. She grabbed the spike that was imbedded in his arm and yanked it out in one fluid motion. He gritted his teeth but didn't make a sound at the pain. She then took one glance at his legs, which were a bit scorched. "They will be fine, nothing too serious. Get some biofoam on that spike entry" she said before returning to Sean.

Damian nodded to her before returning to the spot he now occupied and crashed against the wall. Taking out a biofoam can, he injected it into the wound, once again gritting his teeth at the stinging sensation.

"Are they still there?" Kyle asked.

"In case you forgot, they have active camo and we were unable to see them before. Even now I still can't see them," Akira replied with some amount of bitterness. Kyle nodded and leaned back.

"What the fuck were those things?" Brass suddenly asked.

"Dunno, ain't brutes, that's for sure," Damian replied.

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, the spike I was hit with wasn't superheated so it wasn't shot from a spiker. I could be wrong but since when do brutes jump around in trees?" He asked, somewhat heatedly. "And those plasma bolts aren't normal."

"Heh, you're kinda right about that," Jake replied with a chuckle.

"They can imitate voices," Akira added. Brass replied with an intelligent 'huh?' so she continued. "Did you happen to not notice Jimmy's voice repeat itself, even after his head was...uh, ripped off?" she asked.

"Well yeah, I noticed that, pretty hard...not to..." Damian muttered.

"Never heard of covvies doing shit like this before," Kyle said, joining the conversation.

Damian gave him a sympathetic look behind his helmet. From years of fighting with people who had their faces behind helmets, pretty much every single member of the squad could read body language. Poor kid's body language spoke of dismay and depression. His shoulders were sagged and there was something in his voice, as if he was broken. This was probably the first time Kyle had lost a true friend, if his reaction was any indication. They all had lost friends, a lot of them. He couldn't imagine how many friends Leone'd lost, having fought humanity's most brutal war from the beginning to the end. Some learned how to deal with it, some just grew distant from people, avoiding any attachment. They probably didn't show it, but Jimmy's death affected them all.

"What makes you think its Covenant?" Leone said, his words bringing uncomfortable silence to the cavern and bringing Damian's attention back to the conversation.

"What do you mean by that?" Mary asked, still busy bandaging Sean.

"Exactly what I said. This doesn't look like the covvies. They don't operate like this. Well, not now at least. I know that there were several Sangheili squads that operated like this."

"Yeah, you told us that story. They basically slaughtered a whole garrison without anyone realizing, right?" Brass asked, risking his eyes off from the entrance to glance at the sergeant.

"Yep, that's exactly what happened but even then, they used their energy blades. It was the classic 'slit your throat while you're not watching' scenario. Here they just overwhelmed us with plasma fire and those spikes they shoot."

"And those fucked up disks," Damian added, earning a nod from Leone.

"Disks?" Akura asked.

"Yeah, exactly what I said. There was a weird disk flying around outside. I actually think it was a homing disk, nearly killed me and Sarge twice. Cut right through two trees as if they were fucking made of air," he said heatedly, still unable to get over the existence of such odd weapons. Plasma weapons? He got used to it. Growing up during a war against an enemy which used these weapons pretty much turned it into part of their lives. Flying homing disks that could cut through trees? That was a different story.

"Covvies never used these things," Leone said, his tone final. A moment of silence ensued as everyone processed what he was implying.

"So you want to tell me we have another alien race hellbent on eradicating us again?!" Kyle asked incredulously.

"You don't know how much I hope that this is just a bunch of weird covvies with weird weapons..." Leone summarized.

"You can't be seri-" Kyle began but was interrupted by their COM's crackling. Everyone became immediately silent as they awaited the voice that would transmit.

"_Can anyone hear me? Is anyone alive?"_ A male voice said, whispering? It sounded... frightened? Panicked? The squad exchanged glances.

"What if its a trap? Like they did with Jimmy?" Kyle asked, his voice betraying his anxiety. This was a possibility. And the guy used the global channel, broadcasting to anyone available. What if this was a trick?

"_Please, if anyone can hear me, please respond..."_ the man said, the desperation in his voice nearly caused Damian to wince. They exchanged glances again, most of them aimed at Leone. After a minute of pondering he replied.

"This is Echo one of Echo squad, do you copy?"

"_Oh thank god,"_ the man said, the relief in his voice evident. _"yeah, I hear you. Is everyone alive?"_

"No, we lost one man. Whats the situation at your end?"

"_It's hell. I'm the only one left. We got into a lifepod but around ten minutes after we landed these... things came. They were everywhere, all around us. We didn't even know where to shoot. Pretty much everyone died and we started running away. There was another marine with me but I lost him... I don't think he's alive anymore. I'm hiding now,"_ the man finished, apparently a marine, defeat in his tone.

Leone sighed at the similar situation. "Same here. We're currently in a cave, they didn't follow."

"_I see. I'm trying to contact any other survivors but I don't think we got that many. No one responded other than you."_

"Do you know where Research Base Alpha is?"

"_Yeah, I know where it is. If you're about to ask me to go there, there's no way in hell."_

"We're attempting to get to the base. It's safe there."

"_Huh, good luck with that. Those things are still out there, I know they are. I'm going to stay in my hidey-hole for a while. I'll try to get to the base once they stop looking for me."_

"How can you be sure that they are looking for you?"

"_They were upon us ten minutes after landing and they followed us when we ran. If it's not a hunting party then I'm a fucking Sangheili. Listen, I know that the base is safer but I suggest you to lay low and wait it-... shit!" _he nearly shouted the last word.

"Whats wrong?" Leone asked him.

"_Fuck, they know I'm here. Listen, stay in hiding and-" _there was a noise that sounded like a plasma bolt being fired before static filled the channel.

Several seconds of utter silence passed between the group. "Fuck, we didn't even get his name," muttered Brass.

"So what should we do?" Kyle asked.

Leone remained silent for several seconds before replying. "I still think we should get to the base. They might try to flush us out of here and I don't want to be trapped in a tight spot with our backs to the wall," he said, earning nods. "You have fifteen minutes to rest and after that we're going back to the base. It's not far from here. Mary, try to wake up Sean, we can't afford to carry him, it will slow us down."

"Roger that," she said before she injected something into his bloodstream.

Soon after that Sean woke up and after several minutes he groaned in pain, saying many words that would even offend a brute for leaving behind his carbine. After his tantrum, he seemed calmed down enough and allowed everyone to fill him in. Before everyone knew, their fifteen minutes were up and a tense atmosphere filled the small cavern.

"Do you see anything?" Leone asked.

"No, there is nothing that might indicate they are there. Under normal circumstance I would say the area is clear but here and now..." Akira replied.

"We can't stay here. Sean might not last long and the base has the proper medical equipment," Mary said. Leone stood there for a moment, obviously thinking. Finally, he picked up a rock of medium size and hurled it outside. The rock landed on the ground and rolled a few feet but nothing happened.

"You actually think this will work?" Damian heard someone say in a slightly exasperated tone, it was behind him but wasn't sure who exactly said that.

"Like Mary said, we can't stay here," he said, frowning.

"I say we run for it," Brass offered.

They continued to bicker until it was decided that they would run for it. They stood at the mouth of the cave, Brass supporting Sean by his uninjured shoulder. They carefully climbed out of the cave, Leone in the lead, before breaking into a sprint.

Damian was running in the middle, inspecting the surrounding area as they ran, keeping close to the plateau wall. They were just about to pass beneath an overhanging large branch when he spotted it. It was large, around seven feet tall and its form was blurred, like shimmering air. He fought his share of spec op. covvies and he knew how active camo looked like.

Without hesitation he aimed his handgun and released the whole clip into the figure. He was rewarded by an inhuman growl as he saw two small luminescent green spots appear on the form before it jumped away. "Run! As fast as you can!" He shouted as soon as he lost sight of it.

They doubled their speed as soon as the words left his mouth. They ran like their life depended on it, and it did. Behind him Damian heard an inhuman roar. It was incredibly loud, so loud that it probably echoed for miles from its location. When they heard it, they doubled their speed again. Kyle ran up to Sean and helped Brass carry the wounded man, sometimes picking him up and leaving his feet to dangle beneath him.

"Almost there!" He heard Leone shout, which brought some amount of relief to the squad.

A plasma bolt exploded near Leone, which caused everyone to scatter. This patter continued for a minute or two, everyone scattering, unexpectedly veering side to side. A plasma bolt nearly hit Leone but he turned on his PDG when it was several feet away from him. The shield survived the hit but it sent Leone to the ground. He rolled with the fall and within a blink of an eye was again on his feet.

Mary picked up more speed when the gate of the base came into view. Leone turned around and started blindly firing his assault rifle with Damian and Akura joining him. Within seconds the gate started slowly opening and Kyle and Jake, now fully carrying Sean, slipped in. The last trio broke into a run and rushed inside. By the time they entered the doors were already closing but not fast enough. Two plasma bolts slipped inside, narrowly missing Leone's head and hitting the wall behind him.

The doors closed with a dull thud, leaving them in silence and illuminated in the dim lights of the corridor.

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_**BraK3R's A/N: 2 more chapters guys! Then i'll finally be writing my own chapters from scratch! I'm excited and hopefully you guys are too! Please review and follow, it really helps!**_

**DelVarrO's A/N: Heh, damn, i love this chapter. Things are really starting to roll now :D. Heh, poor Jimmy. You know, i got the idea of the 'head slipping out of helmet' thing from Star Wars, really i did. Remember Episode II? Where Boba Fett's father had his head lopped off? And then we see young Boba pick his father's helmet up? Well, me and my friends pretty much laughed our asses off when we imagined if young Boba picked his father's helmet and then his dad's head will pop out with a comical 'pop!' sound. That will probably scar him for life. We laughed so hard. Yeah, we're horrible people, we know.**

**Anyway, thank you for reading this story. I'm very glad that you loved it so far and continue reading this. I gladly accept constructive criticism, ideas and suggestions. You can simply point out a flaw or something that you didnt like and I will be glad to hear your opinion so dont stalk in the dark and tell me what you think. :) Until next time, which wont be so long, Delvaro out!**


	9. One for One

**_BraK3R's A/N: _**This was a fairly quick chapter to edit so I managed to get it done and posted asap. Hopefully, I can get Chapter 10 out too, then it'll be showtime...

_**DelVarO's A/N: **_Sorry it took me this long! I simply had an annoying writer's block... well, blocking me and an unexpected illness which left me bedridden. Regardless, I am back once again with a new chapter, albeit a much shorter one. Anyway, i dont have anything else to say so enjoy this chapter!

By the way! Thanks for all the reviews you gave me so far, it helps me as an author in the long run, so thanks! ^^

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**Chapter Nine - One for One**

**1415 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Research Base Alpha**

The mood was awful, and that was putting it lightly. Jimmy's death had affected everyone, Kyle most of all. Once they'd returned to the safety of the base Kyle stormed off to somewhere and no one had stopped him. Brass was yelling and raging around while the rest helped Mary get Sean into the medical wing to treat his burns.

During that time, Kyle walked around aimlessly, not noticing nor caring where he was going. He wasn't a rookie, no ODST was green; having _some_ experience in battle was a must if you wanted to join the Helljumpers. He couldn't help but feel angry at how... calm they all were but he stopped himself from thinking along those lines. He knew that everyone in the squad besides him and Jimmy, now only him, were effectively veterans. All of them had survived through the last years of the Covenant-Human war except for Leone who had survived through the entire war. He knew that he was being a fool to even consider that they didn't feel a damn thing about Jimmy's death. Everyone had lost friends before in the war and outside of it and Kyle guessed that he'd just popped his cherry today.

Now that he thought about it, of the whole squad only he and Sean had homes to return to and families waiting for them. Akira, Jake, and Damian had lost their families when the planets they'd lived on were glassed. Mary was an orphan who'd joined the UNSC as soon as she was old enough to. Leone had said that his whole family was long dead, never telling much more and everyone respected his wishes and left the issue alone.

The anger suddenly came back when Kyle remembered all the memories he'd had with Jimmy. They had met during boot camp and soon became friends after both had decided to join the ODST corps. The only battle they'd ever participated in had been in a small skirmish against a Brute separatist outpost. They'd won that battle with minimal losses and soon later had applied for the ODST corps and eventually ended up in Echo Squad.

The subject of death was often thought of and he often wondered when it would be his turn to kick the bucket. He recalled his first battle, how he had been scared shitless but eventually prevailed. Somehow, he always expected he'd die in some huge battle, fighting for something important and making a contribution... not like Jimmy; killed in silence without anyone knowing by whatever-the-hell it was that killed him on some god-forsaken planet.

These thoughts lead him to think on why he had even joined the UNSC in the first place. He could say that it was because of revenge, sense of duty, and maybe following the footsteps of his father. His father had been a marine during the war and had come out of it alive, unlike many others. The downside of it was that he hadn't come out in one piece. A plasma grenade that had landed too close to him had left him without an arm and a leg, and the whole right side of his body had been covered in burn scars. Kyle practically grew up on stories about the Covenant, the battlefield, and some friends that his father had met when he'd served in the army. All of this probably fed into his decision to join the army and fight the bastards who'd left his father a cripple... and some stupid ideas of heroic battles.

During all this time he'd never looked at where he was walking to and he flinched when he heard someone call his name. Looking up, he saw that he'd somehow ended up walking into the control room and Damian was looking at him expectantly.

"Uh, what?" he asked dumbly.

"I asked how you are feeling," Damian repeated. Kyle looked around the room, seeing only the sergeant, Brass and Damian there. The others must still be in the infirmary.

"Honestly? I feel like crap," Kyle said with a sigh, collapsing into one of the chairs and removing his helmet, his nostrils detecting the smell of the cigarettes that Brass and Leone were smoking.

Damian nodded, somewhat sagely. "Don't know if it's a good thing or not but...you get used to it," he finished quietly. "... somewhat."

Kyle looked at him for several seconds wondering exactly how many friends Damian had lost, before he felt a nudge on his shoulder. He looked at the source to see the surprisingly docile Jake offering him one of his smoke-sticks. "Here," he said quietly.

Kyle took it and placed it into his mouth, allowing Brass to light it up with an ancient-looking lighter. He took a long puff, feeling the burning sensation move through his lungs before he started coughing. He had never smoked before and hadn't expected it to taste so... vile.

Brass snickered for a second at his misfortune before allowing the room to return into silence. They stayed like that for several minutes until Akira stepped into the room, helmet held in her arm and a worrying frown etched on her face.

"How is he?" Leone asked, looking at her from the corner of his eye.

"He'll live. Shoulder's busted though so he won't be able to properly use his arm for a while," she stated in monotone.

"Like you said, he'll live," Leone said with a huff and after that silence again descended on everyone.

Akira remained standing at the door looking around them. Several minutes passed before she lifted her helmet and threw it to the floor with an uncharacteristic growl. Everyone was startled from their musing and looked at her with curious stares.

"What the fuck was it back there?" she shouted-half-growled at Leone, her finger pointed in the general direction of the main gate.

Leone watched her with stoic eyes. Akira was usually cool and collected and it was unlike her to lose her temper like this.

"You're asking me?" he replied gruffly.

"Yes, I am!" she growled. "What the fuck was that? That's not covenant, we all know that for sure now!" she said angrily.

"How can you be so sure?" Kyle joined the one-sided argument, since Leone wasn't phased at all by Akira's shouting.

"Trust me kid, I know... I've been doing this from way before you even started elementary," she replied, turning her glowering stare to the youngest member of the squad.

"Akira, don't vent on him," Damian broke into the conversation, his voice calm. The woman turned her glare on him but he wasn't phased by it either.

"They don't operate like this, we established that already. Trust me, I've seen enough Elite Spec Op squads to know that they would never operate like this, no matter what. It's like... we were...we were being fucking hunted!" she said after tearing her gaze away from Damian, much calmer this time. She then turned her gaze at Leone. "You know something we don't, am I right?"

Leone looked at each of them, all of whom were looking at him, some with a slight measure of anger in their faces. "No, I don't know anything about this," he said with a sigh. "Wish I knew, believe me. The only need-to-know info I received was about an interesting life form, extremely dangerous, which was suspected to cause the disappearance of everyone here...now though, now I'm not so sure," he finished with a huff.

"Life form? What life form?" Akira asked.

"Just some kind of animal they found here years ago. They've been studying it for years now. The only thing I know about it is that it's extremely dangerous and that the higher-ups suspected an outbreak had caused the base to send the distress signal. There was nothing about sentient aliens here..."

"I see," Akira muttered and relented, leaving the room without another word. Damian released a tired sigh before he followed after her.

They all sat in silence, thinking about their situation. "Fuck!" Brass suddenly spat, causing Kyle to look at him, questions dancing in his eyes.

"We're stuck here. The ship was blown up, we have those fuckers outside and I have no idea how long it will take for reinforcements to get us out of this shit, if they even manage to do that..." Brass muttered the last part.

"They did take out our ship fairly quickly... makes me wonder how powerful whatever killed them was," Leone added, rubbing his chin.

"So what are we going to do?" Kyle asked the most important question. Jake and Leone shared a look before the sergeant replied.

"There's not much we _can_ do. In all honesty, we're pretty much screwed here. We have to dig in, wait for reinforcements. I'm not going to risk the outside for a while. We have no idea how many of them there are and what we are facing," he said grimly.

"So... we're stuck here?" Kyle asked weakly.

"That's right. Good boy, I knew you had a brain in there somewhere," Jake answered with a small smirk. At least Brass was returning to normal...

* * *

Akira angrily stormed through the hallways, Damian silently following behind. Where she was going and why she was going there was completely unknown to him. Probably because she didn't know, herself. Much like Kyle earlier, she was wandering aimlessly, possibly to relieve some stress.

To say that she was pissed would be an understatement but at least she was calming down now. Damian gradually caught up with her and walked to her side.

"Anything you want to say?" he asked her.

"What do you want?" she replied angrily.

"Look, I know that everyone is a bit shaken, but don't vent your anger on us," he replied, his tone showing his annoyance.

"They were hunting us down out there, you heard that guy we spoke to. He told us they hunted his whole squad down as soon as they landed; Covenant aren't that subtle. And, Jimmy is dead and we never even noticed it!" she said, stopping to a halt and fully facing him now. "That wasn't the covenant."

Damian sighed at her words. He couldn't deny them after all. Not enough proof to figure out whether she was wrong or right but she had some truth in her reasoning. The Covenant, especially the brutes, were more... blunt than this.

"Understand, that we might have a first-contact situation here and it's gone completely fubar, AGAIN... just like Harvest was" she said, more subdued this time. "Humanity can't handle another war like the last one..." she finished, saying the last part under her breath.

To her surprise Damian chuckled darkly, making her glance at him with confusion. "Nothing funny really, just makes me wonder if we'll ever meet a friendly alien race," he said, his face wearing a strange expression between a frown and a smirk.

"True, makes you think though doesn't it?" she asked him, leaning against the wall. Damian quickly joined her.

"About what?"

"About our unfortunate situation," she said bitterly. "I wonder if this will escalate to a war."

"Hey, don't start on that, we don't really know anything about what attacked us. It might be the covvies attempting something new for all we know," he assured her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I hope so..." she trailed off from there. "I just don't want another war."

"Me too," he said, pushing himself off the wall and starting to walk back to the control room, leaving Akira alone with her thoughts. "me too..."

Akira had once told him about her upbringing. She had been raised in a happy family with two sisters, being the middle one. Life was good, everyone was happy. She called it paradise, well it was paradise at least, until the Covenant came. She told him that she had been one of the several hundred refugees that the UNSC had managed to evacuate. She'd seen how her planet had been glassed and destroyed, along with her home and everything she knew and loved. She spent months searching for her sisters and parents but there was no trace of them anywhere, which left her to only a single conclusion. Her family had never left the planet.

Damian always found it a bit strange and ironic that Akira was a pacifist at heart. She hated war, she hated the battles, yet she was an elite special forces soldier. She once told him that the reason she'd joined the UNSC was because she wanted to stop the war that had claimed so many lives and homes. He could relate to that in some way.

Regardless of everything though, they were still stuck in here, so that left them with little to do besides devise a plan to get out of the planet, or explore the other floors of Alpha Base.

* * *

Ave'gaar gazed at the large gate that the Oomans had went through to escape them. The hunt was good so far and the prey was even better. They exceeded his expectations greatly. The hunters had managed to kill only one of them, luring him away from the others before silently killing him. What he didn't expect was for the others to escape them mostly unscathed. One of them even injured one of his warriors with their small burners, nothing too serious as the warrior had simply shrugged it off.

Their ship was gone and all who escaped in their Tyioe-ti were hunted down with success. It was a good day, mostly. The black Ooman's managed to escape into their facility and that presented a problem. They could follow them inside but that would be even more problematic. He knew how dangerous a cornered animal could be and in the narrow tunnels beneath the ground they weren't as effective as outside within the trees.

A sudden tremor and a thud going through the ground alerted him that someone had landed beside him. He turned to look at the uncloaked hunter, cocking his head to the side.

"Some Oomans escaped. They will not last long though, they are still in the jungle. We will find them soon," the hunter, Cha'kun'da he now recognized, stated.

Ave'gaar huffed at his words. If not brave warriors, the Oomans were certainly resourceful. Any being that managed to escape a Yautja hunter deserved some measure of respect. When the Cha'kun'da remained there, Ave'gaar regarded him again, his mandibles clicking in annoyance. "Anything else?"

Cha'kun'da seemed to hesitate, something that Ave'gaar noticed if the low growl coming from him was any indication. "They have killed one of our hunters."

At those words Ave'gaar rounded on the younger Yautja, glowering over him. To his credit, Cha'kun'da didnt back down and remained rooted to his spot, knowing well that if he backed down he would be in immediate pain.

"One of the burners managed to pierce his throat. A mortal wound." Cha'kun'da said simply, controlling the tone of his voice to show calmness.

For a second Cha'kun'da suspected that Ave'gaar would hit him in anger, betraying his anxiety by tensing and preparing to defend himself, when the older warrior turned away from him with a short hiss filled with anger.

Cha'kun'da lamented his situation. It was just his amazing luck that he was chosen to bring the message to Ave'gaar. Unfortunately, this wasn't the worst message he carried. This time he fully braced himself for an attack. Ave'gaar was always more...violent than the others.

"What else?" Ave'gaar asked, the clicking of his mandibles filling the air seconds later.

"They stripped him. Took his burner and other equipment," Cha'kun'da said, quickly and to the point. To his surprise, instead of an attack a rumble arose from the the elder Yautja.

"So they collect trophies now? How interesting..." he said, mostly to himself. "If you find them, retrieve whatever they took," he barked the last part.

At this, Cha'kun'da left the older Yautja to himself. He had the remaining Oomans to find. _'Good hunt,'_ he mused to himself as he fingered the small net-sack where two bloody Ooman skulls hanged.

Ave'gaar ignored the hunter's departure, instead preferring to look at the gate. It didn't matter if they hid there or not. They would not, could not, stay there forever. When they did come out, the hunters would be there to meet them. Besides, it wasn't as if these Oomans were the only prey on the planet.

* * *

_**DelVarO's A/N: **_Hehehe, yeah, this chapter is finished. Shorter than usual but meh... the bloody block annoyed the hell out of me so at least i'm finally out of it. As you've seen in this chapter, i gave some background! And be sure that I will do so again. I'm not planning to have the other characters to just 'be there'. I plan them to be real, lovable characters that you could actually care about. Anyway, the plot escalates and so far, the situation has calmed. The Yautja began their hunt and so far, things arent looking good for our lovable Echo Squad.

Thanks for reading my story! I really appreciate it and I'm always glad to see when someone adds it to their fav list or alert. If you notice any flaws, or anything that you believe is a mistake, feel free to point it out. I gladly accept constructive criticism, ideas, suggestions of just regular, run-of-the-mill comments. Leave them in a review or a PM, ill be glad to have them. Thanks again and until next time, Delvaro out.

_**BraK3R's A/N: **_Don't forget to leave a review guys! Thanks!


	10. Into the Howling Dark

**_BraK3R's A/N: _**What's up everyone! I'm very excited to finally post chapter 10 of this fanfic. It's been a long time coming but now I will finally continue the story where Delvaro left off and I hope you guys are just as excited as I am. This is Delvaro's last chapter, and from now on every chapter will be my own. This chapter also happens to be one of my favorite ones in the fanfic so far haha. Please enjoy, review, and follow!

**_DelVarO's A/N:_ **Booyah! I'm back and alive! Yeah, it took me a while but I've been honestly busy. I'm in my last year in my academy so my workload was trippled. So far, in two months I had to write seven essays and other stuff. So yeah, I didnt really have time to write anything. Also, the last three weeks, while I have been mostly free, were occupied with Battlefield 3 (Cant blame me for this! The game's awesome!) and reading the latest Halo novel (Halo: Glasslands, in case you're interested. The sort-of Sequel to Ghosts of Onyx). So yeah, now that I finished the novel I finally made the time to write this brand new chapter. Sorry it took me so long!

Now, this chapter is not as long as I at first assumed (it looked much longer when I was writing it) but I dont really care at the moment. It's 2AM and I barely got any sleep this week and my eyes are killing me at the moment. I double checked for weird typos so I'm sure I fixed all the stuff I could find. But then again, I am sleepy and I might've missed something. If you do spot something, feel free to notify me so I could fix it.

Now, enjoy this new chapter! I worked for many hours on it! :D

* * *

**Chapter 10 - Into the Howling Dark**

**1300 Hours, February 8, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Research Base Alpha**

A day. Twenty four hours, or in this case, twenty six hours. Damian had been in a situation like this before but never expected that just simply sitting on your ass underground for a whole day with nothing to do, while the enemy was doing god knows what outside, would be so torturous. After all, for all he knew, they could be attempting to open the door at this very moment and they were none the wiser. The exterior cameras were offline or most were missing so they were blind to the outside world. Any message they tried sending, came unanswered and no one had tried to contact them so it meant either of two things: either everyone outside decided to maintain radio silence...or they were already dead. That wasn't a cheerful thought.

_Happy thoughts, happy thoughts. You don't want to be depressed now and ruin the mood for everyone._

Not that he actually needed to try. The mood was already utter shit. Kyle was sulking around, preferring everyone to leave him alone, so he volunteered to patrol the corridors most of the time. Leone and Brass constantly argued over what they should do next. Should they stay here and try to contact the other bases or find another way out. None of them were keen on going outside. Mary was pissed that nothing seemed to properly work and that the system was so thoroughly and violently wiped. The only ones who seemed to act the same as usual were himself and Akira. Then again, he was able to see the changes in Akira anyway. She was more agitated and kept slightly jumping at the slightest unexpected noise. It was barely there, invisible to someone who didn't know her.

The only good news they had was that Sean was up and about.

Mostly anyway. He seemed to be a little bit out of it. He tried acting normal but whenever he was sure no one was looking or listening, Damian caught him muttering to himself or looking at his injury with a hideous cringe. The most prominent word he caught was 'demons'. When he was asked about it he gave a quick explanation to him. The small plasma bolt exploded when it hit him and truthfully, without the armor he would've lost his arm. As he passionately said, "It's one thing to burn you and its another thing to blow you up but doing both at the same time is pure evil. It ain't no covvies man, even they don't do this shit."

_I guess everyone agrees then that it isn't the Covenant._

Not that there was a Covenant anymore. With the end of the war, the Covenant had disbanded and all the races went on their own merry way. The Brutes went to do more fighting amongst themselves for whatever reason they had, Jackals went back to being traders and pirates, and the Elites went back to their home, Sanghelios. Where the hell the Grunts, Drones, and Hunters went is anyone's guess. The Jackals were probably selling Covenant tech to some Insurrectionist dick-weed that had crawled out of his spider-hole after the war had ended.

Nowadays it was practically impossible to encounter organized rebel groups, other than some backwater planets where the aliens never realized that the Covenant was no more. When the Covenant fell, so did their supply lines, COM systems, everything. For an almighty advanced collection of alien races, they were quite dependent on each other. Remove one race and the whole system crashes. With the Engineers gone, no one repaired their ships and equipment, no one brought them new armaments, and no one brought them supplies other than the Jackals, and those buggers traded with _anyone_ who wanted to trade. Of course, if they didn't kill them first.

After nearly thirty years of war and fighting them for so long, it felt kind of strange not to call them the Covenant. Even after a decade, people still called them that, even though now they were individual races.

At the moment, Damian was patrolling the corridors. There wasn't much else to do, other than stare at the empty corridors and dusty floors but if whatever crawled through the ventilation shafts came back, someone needed to know where it was. Also there was the danger that whatever was outside might try to get in, or worse, was already inside. They weren't taking any risks. Damian didn't argue. He was edgy about the whole situation as it was. Fighting known alien enemies was somewhat comforting compared to this. There were atleast patterns. You shot them, and they died. You knew where to shoot, how much to shoot and to tell if it was dead. Whatever was attacking them here was completely and utterly unknown. Unknown was not something he liked.

He would've continued his mental rant about how much he hated the situation, had he not heard the new Leone vs. Brass argument in the control room.

"... well, the armory's on the third floor, including the barracks and other labs," he heard Leone say. Calmly, not in the gruff, growl-like voice he usually used when he was arguing over something. Maybe they weren't arguing after all. "We need to resupply anyway."

"Yeah, but what if it was locked away for a reason? What if whatever is down there is worse than what's outside?" Brass countered, speaking slowly as if Leone wouldn't understand him if he spoke faster. "What if the guys here didn't want to take their chances with what's down there and instead simply left?"

"And left all their food supplies and all their belongings here? No, if they would've left, they would have taken it with them. They had the time to weld that door shut, which means they had time to gather supplies, which they didn't do."

At that moment Damian entered the control room where he saw the two men sitting in front of the empty screens. The only screen that had something on was the screen in front of Mary. He was never all that tech savvy. Other than knowing the basics and how to operate his VISR(Visual Intelligence System Reconnaissance), he never bothered to learn much else. He had more important things to worry about, like overzealous aliens who wanted to wipe him out. They ignored him and continued with their conversation/argument.

"Well, I still don't want to take my chances outside. It doesn't mean that I want to find out _why_ they welded that door shut. I'm all for the armory but what if-"

Brass was interrupted by a loud and ecstatic shout from Mary. "Yes! Finally!" she exclaimed, pumping her fists into the air and proceeded to do something which looked like some deformed and unorganized victory dance from a sitting position. It was at that moment that she realized that all attention was turned to her. She met the questioning gazes with a dazzling grin. "I managed to find what remained on the system. It's a very patchy job, obviously not done by an expert..."

She was about to ramble on but Leone held up a hand. "And why is this making you so happy?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "the distress signal had to come from somewhere, right? It came from _this_ base," she paused, looking at them expectantly, waiting for them to say something. Brass looked at Damian, hoping to see an answer but was met with the same confused expression and a shrug. Mary realized that no answer was coming and rolled her eyes again. "If the system was damaged and wiped, it means that the distress signal is still there. I just had to find it. Whoever set up the distress signal made a patchy job, but they did set up a secondary system, regardless of how frail it is,"

"And...?" Brass asked in length, wondering what she was getting at.

Mary scoffed, obviously annoyed. "Luddites," she muttered, getting an indignant glare from Brass. Damian just rolled his eyes with a smirk. Leone showed no outward reaction to her words. "I'll explain it for you in your manly caveman language. The distress signal came from this very base, it's still up and I know where exactly it comes from."

This seemed to make Leone perk up. Without further prodding Mary continued, her victorious smirk now gone. "Third floor."

Those two words were enough to settle them all into uncomfortable silence. Brass hung his head in defeat while Leone firmed his jaw. Damian sighed in resignation. From one shitty situation to another. This gave Leone another reason to go down there. If he was going to admit it, Damian was freaked out by the lower floors.

_Brass has a point, what if they closed it for a good reason?_

Either way, they were going down. ODST's never refused missions, it was just like that and once Leone set his sights on something, he would get it. However, that didn't mean they had to like it. Then again, he was getting frustratingly bored.

"We're really going to do this?" Damian asked, speaking for the first time.

"Yeah, we're going down there and let's hope that whatever is down there won't bite off our asses," Leone replied.

"Permission to feel reassured, sir." Damian said, stone-faced, showing no expression.

"Granted, now go and gather everyone and do it fast. The longer we sit here on our asses the more time we give the enemy to bust in here!"

With a nod Damian left the room, walking in a swift pace to the location where Akira had last patrolled and from there he would pick up Kyle and Sean.

He found her in five minutes as she aimlessly walked through a corridor. He quickly explained the situation to her and they moved quickly to the room where Sean was staying. Kyle would probably be there as well. His assumption was proven correct when they entered the room, which had become their unofficial sleeping quarters. Sean was tinkering with his Covenant carbine, doing whatever he was doing with it while Kyle was taking a nap against the wall.

Damian lightly kicked Kyle's boot, startling the man from his slumber. He looked around frantically, a hand resting on his weapon, before he realized that nothing was attacking him. "Come on, Sarge wants to see us," he said and turned around to leave, quickly followed by Akira. Kyle exchanged a glance with Sean and got up with a groan and ran to catch up with the duo, followed by the silent Sean.

"What's Sarge up to?" Kyle asked when he caught up with Damian.

Damian didn't look at him. He knew that Kyle was nervous enough as it was and he really didn't want to make him even more so. He was depressed enough as it was but it couldn't be helped; Kyle was an ODST. He wouldn't be one if he couldn't handle a situation such as this, first mission or not. "We're probably going down to the third floor," he said tonelessly.

Kyle's eyebrows rose to his hairline. "Why?"

"The distress signal came from the third floor. Whoever set it up might still be there. The armory is there too and we're not exactly full on ammo," he explained shortly. "Sarge will explain the rest."

Kyle looked at him for several seconds before he steeled his features and gave Damian a firm nod. The corners of Damian's lip quirked a bit, glad to see that Kyle still had some grit left in him. It was always hard to see a friend die for the first time. In some aspect, the lucky ones witnessed it during a battle. At that time, no one would have any time to grieve, or think about it too much. In a battle it was a distraction that you couldn't afford. Jimmy on the other hand...was all too sudden. They didn't even know _when_ he had died, they had never noticed that he had been missing in the first place.

The rest of the walk continued in silence and the only words that were said were a couple of greetings to Sarge and Brass when they entered the control room. They all took whatever seats they could find, some taking seats on the table when all the chairs were taken. Leone stood in front of them and gave them all a long, hard look before he spoke.

"Alright troopers, we have a choice to make here. Mary here found out where the distress signal came from. Unfortunately, it comes from the third floor. Now, before you interrupt me with whatever you have to say, I've probably already heard it from a certain someone," he gave a pointed look at Brass, who didn't shy away from it. "We still need to go down there. Rescue's not coming anytime soon if at all, and I'll probably go insane if we stay here and lay low forever. We still have a mission to complete..."

"...find out what happened here and where everyone disappeared to," Akira finished.

"Got that in one," Leone said to her with a nod. "I don't know about any of you, but I never leave a mission unfinished. So gear up, and lets go and find us some scientists!" he barked out, urging them to action.

The next minutes were a flurry of movements, squadmates moving about, picking up their equipment, weapons and whatever else they left lying around, which happened to be a cigarette pack in Brass' case. When it was all over, they silently moved towards the third floor door in the stairwell. Once they arrived, Sean took out his welding equipment and handed it over to Brass, since he still couldn't properly use his arm. It wasn't an awfully long process, though it was still trying on Damian's patience. It took about fifteen minutes for Brass to cut open a doorway for them all to fit through. When Brass was done, he folded up the equipment and placed it back into Sean's rucksack. He put on his helmet, polarized his visor, and gave a nod to Leone. They both approached the door and grasped the new edges and pulled it towards themselves. Damian and Kyle quickly helped them place the piece of metal as quietly as they could on the floor while Mary and Akira pointed their weapons into the now-open doorway. There was no reason to make a ruckus when they could easily avoid it.

They quickly stood up, pulled out their weapons and approached the doorway. Much to Damian's dismay, the stairway lead to a very dark hallway. _Just what I need. Running around in dark corridors with possibly hostile aliens lurking about. _With that thought in mind, he followed Leone and Brass down into the dark, closely followed by the others. The only positive thing that Damian could see in this situation was that their BDU's allowed them to blend in the dark, making it hard to see them properly.

As soon as he entered the dark corridor everything brightened as his HUD entered VISR mode, which brightened his mood a bit as everything in the corridor became illuminated and highlighted by the smartfeed. A few seconds later however, any remnants of his positive mood vanished.

If the floor above them could be described as abandoned, as in, the inhabitants leaving the place quietly without leaving any trails, then this floor was an utter mess. To make matters worse, there were signs of intense battle visible in every direction he looked. The squad paused in place, inspecting the scene, searching for any clue to tell them as to what had happened. Bullet holes were in practically every wall in sight. Empty casings littered the floor, along with empty clips that were discarded once they became useless. From this position Damian could see three more melted holes on the floor, smaller that the one upstairs but still nothing to tell them about the source. At this point, it seemed that there hadn't been returned fire towards the shooters. Leone silently signaled them to follow as he took the lead and moved further into the dark corridor. The same scene appeared again and again throughout the hallway, bullet holes in the walls, empty casings, sometimes they could see dark stains on the floors and walls of various sizes. It didn't take a genius to understand what it was. Dried blood. It looked like a large battle had taken place here but one detail kept on unnerving Damian continually, a feeling that was shared by the rest of the squad.

There were no bodies in sight.

It left them to assume that two things had happened. A battle had taken place and the personnel had retreated without casualties, although there was a slim chance to that with all the dried blood so far. What happened to the bodies however... was a mystery. The marines would've taken the injured with them, or whoever had attacked had also taken the bodies. They passed by a particularly large bloodstain, which Damian had concluded that whoever had bled that much was probably dead by now.

Leone finally lead them out of the entrance corridor into the main floor, where all the rooms were held. Leone paused at an intersection of corridors before he presumably picked a direction at random and turned left.

Most of the doors were unlocked and left open, allowing the squad to see the messes that awaited inside. Tables were overthrown. Datapads, papers, and other various items were scattered across the floors. One room, which they decided to avoid, had a particularly large and gruesome-looking bloodstain on the wall.

A sudden noise caused every single one of them to turn to the direction they had heard it from, weapons raised and fingers on the triggers. When they saw nothing they cautiously looked around. Guns pointed up, to the sides and even at the floor in Leone's case.

"What was that?" Brass whispered quietly, even though everyone knew that there was no need to whisper since their helmets were sound-proof. No one on the outside would be able to hear what was said, unless the wearer wanted them to. This allowed them to speak on any volume they wished, though at the moment not one of them wanted to speak loudly.

"I dont know. Sounded like a...shuffle. Something moved," Leone told them quietly. "I think it came from there," he said as he slowly, carefully, and as quietly as possible, moved towards the door closest to them.

When Leone was just two steps away from the door the noise repeated and they could hear it clearly this time. Something indeed moved in the room. Leone signaled them to prepare themselves and Damian and Brass took positions on both sides of the door. In one fluid movement Leone kicked open the door and Damian and Brass rushed in, weapons leading. Inside they found... nothing, which slightly disappointed Damian.

_How cliché. All this build-up for an empty room_, he lamented. He hated these types of situations. Give him something to shoot and he would be happy. That way he could kill it and get rid of it. Right now he was just stumbling in the dark.

However, upon closer inspection, the room wasn't as empty as they had first thought. In the middle of the room was a bloodstain and exactly in the middle of that was a datapad, still turned on.

Mary stepped into the room, picked up the datapad, wiped away the crusted blood from the screen, and took a look. No one stopped her from doing that. She was their tech expert after all. "Sarge, this looks like a journal, though this log looks like it was never finished..." she trailed off, glancing at the dried blood. Everyone understood what she meant.

"What does it say?" Sean asked as he looked around the room nervously.

Mary scrolled down the datapad, her eyes swiftly scanning the screen and filing away information. "Not much. Several logs, beginning last year and ending about...two months ago," she glanced at the crusted blood again. "which probably was when the guy lost this."

Damian placed his hand out to Mary and she handed him the datapad, no longer interested in it. He fiddled with it a bit, looking at whatever was there. As Mary had said, it had been used solely as a journal for the owner and other than several logs, there was nothing in it. He scrolled to the first log and opened it.

**_August 20, 2562._**

_Damn marines. I swear they are just fucking with us on purpose. Some of the guys are nervous now and now a few are even refusing to go outside. I'll admit that I'm nervous too. Doc suggested that I should write something in this piece of useless crap to 'relieve my stress and let out all my pent up emotion.'_

_I'm fine dammit. I don't have pent up emotions!_

_Why am I even writing this? I might as well finish it since I already started and I hate leaving things unfinished. Back to the marines. Major Warren recently ordered the marines to go outside to hunt for our food in order to keep our proper supplies from running out. I'll admit that the 'Rhino' meat is delicious though I fear we won't be getting it anymore. The marines are telling us that there's something out there in the jungle. They haven't seen anything or anyone but they feel that they're being watched._

_The spook told them to calm down and that there was no danger to anyone and that we should go back to our jobs. I hope things calm down soon. If the marines are getting jumpy, maybe that's a cause of concern for us too._

Nothing too impressive yet as far as journals went, in Damian's opinion. Nothing interesting like who slept with who, who cheated on who, who was caught in the supply closet with their pants down, literally. Or more importantly, what they were doing in this place. It was a journal of a guy who wrote down his thoughts: the most boring kind of journals. However the whole 'being watched' thing that the marines had experienced was all too familiar now to Damian. It made him even more curious. He scrolled to the next entry and opened it.

**_September 2, 2562._**

_Things calmed down after about a week after my first entry but last night the shit hit the fan in full force. The marines went out to get us some fresh food instead of the crap that's in our base and they brought us a damn Raptor, well it's not really a raptor... but it looked like it could be one so that's what everyone calls it. It isn't the best name but it sure as hell is better than the long Latin name those lab geeks here named it. Anyway, the marines blew up the Raptor's head or at least we thought so. Apparently, this was how they found it. When we inspected it closer we saw that the head had been cut off with a very sharp tool. It was a really clean cut through all the muscle and spinal chord, and when I mean 'clean cut', I mean that it was as if there hadn't been any bone structure in the damn beast at all and the blade had just severed through jelly. There was another clean stab wound on the chest, impaling straight to the heart._

_The freaky part came next though. Sgt. Dyrdahl said that they'd heard a noise very close to them and when they had checked it out, they had spotted a freshly killed reptile waiting for them. By fresh, I mean 'just-a-few-seconds-ago' fresh. How the hell do you not notice someone killing something just a few feet away from you? Goddamn._

_We're not alone out here._

Damian reread the last part again. It would've sounded farfetched had they not lost Jimmy the same way. This journal was getting more and more interesting. Maybe who wrote this might shed some light into this mess. The next entry was incredibly short.

**_September 13, 2562._**

_At lunch I heard the spook talk about some place in Venator III, wherever that is. Sounds like the name of a solar system. I left the place before he noticed I was eavesdropping his conversation. Also, the marines started finding headless animal carcasses._

Venator III. Damian searched through his memory but couldn't reference the name with anything he remembered. He filed it for later, deciding to ask Leone or Brass about it later. They were more versed about system and planet names than he was. He picked the next entry, ignoring the small conversation that had broken out between the squadmates while Kyle peeked over his shoulder to look at the datapad.

**_October 6, 2562._**

_Goddamnit! I'm going to murder O' Reilly! And Jeffery too if he wasn't dead by now. I knew that I shouldn't have agreed to that dare. Fucking Sean, daring me to go out with the marines today. Sure, I'm supposed to be one of the wildlife experts here but I didn't want to go out when those things were out there! We were just talking about them when Sean dared me to go out to find out what was really out there. For some stupid reason that I don't remember, I agreed and now I wish I hadn't._

_I was following the marines around as they searched for some game to hunt when Makravitz saw something. I looked at where he'd pointed and saw it too. I've never seen it firsthand, but I know how an active camouflage looks like. The... thing, whatever it was, was pretty damn big too. Jeffery, that moronic ape, decided for some reason to open fire on it. The thing just vanished the moment the idiot started firing and to make it worse, Jeffery ran after it. We followed Jeffery but several seconds later he _vanished _also. He was nowhere in sight. We've seen nothing and heard nothing from him since. It was as if Jeffery had simply ceased to exist._

_The bloody spook was trying to calm everyone down but utterly failed. Marines don't just vanish._

Damian narrowed his eyes. This was now entirely too familiar to him. "Sarge," he called the older man over. "This journal is getting interesting. They encountered the things that killed Jimmy," he told him concisely and to the point. He opened the next entry.

**_October 8, 2562._**

_Found Jeffery. The head is still MIA. Looks like it was torn out with half of his spine. Gruesome sight, wish I hadn't looked. A frightening thought occurred to me. All the headless animals and now Jeffery. They collect heads._

_The spook knows something, I just know it. He hadn't even looked surprised at the news, just a bit perplexed. I get the feeling that he knows more-_

Damian tore his eyes away from the datapad. He would've read further had it not been the odd noise that echoed through the empty corridors into the room. It sounded like a loud hissing noise, not like a snake's mind you, because this hiss sounded like it was inhaling _not_ exhaling. And it was definitely louder. Snakes, of any size, didn't hiss at a volume as loud as this hiss. However, this could simply mean that it was very close to them. He swiftly placed the datapad into the storage compartment of his armor and readied his weapon.

Without any need to order or prompt them, everyone raised their weapons and aimed them at the door, expecting some monstrosity to burst in through the door to cut off their heads. However, nothing came at them. Not a sound was made and nothing moved. Brass took point and slowly moved out of the room, quickly pointing his battle rifle at both sides of the corridor. "Clear," he said quietly after a few seconds.

The rest of them followed him out, slowly and quietly moving through the corridor. Several steps later a vent cover fell to the floor right in front of Kyle with a loud clatter. He jumped back with a loud yelp, quickly aiming his gun at the now open ventilation shaft, quickly followed by the others. They stood there quietly for a few moments, not daring to move their rifles from the opening in the ceiling. A loud clatter was heard several feet away from them, apparently from the ventilation shaft. As if something large moved inside. Their weapons were immediately aimed at that spot, expecting an attack. They waited but nothing came. Everything was silent. Even their motion trackers were showing blanks.

"Sir?" Brass muttered.

"Yeah?"

"I don't like this. Not one bit," Brass said in a hissed whisper, visibly agitated. Damian was inclined to agree. This crap was starting to get to him.

Leone glanced into the visor of his squadmates before he nodded, mostly to himself. "I don't like the look of this too. Let's get what we came for and get the hell out of here. Mary?" Leone quietly told them and looked at Mary, who took out her personal datapad.

"Oh, this is good. The signal originates from the place we're heading to: the armory," she said, a hint of positiveness entering her voice. This seemed to cheer up the squad slightly. The sooner they got to their objective, the sooner they could leave this place behind them.

They set off at the same pace, the careful and silent crawling speed. Not that anyone minded. It was better to be careful than dead. Of course, so far they hadn't encountered anything that had tried to kill them, which was rather rare for ODST's, but one could never be _too_ careful. Like a marine that Damian once knew said, 'You gotta watch where you go, or you just might step into some shit.'

Damian took that saying to heart, it made a lot of sense after all.

It took them a few minutes to reach the armory but thankfully they made it without any further distractions, suspicious sounds, or spontaneously dropping ventilation covers. Nothing that might make them even more nervous. They were thankful for that. Hopefully whatever was in the ventilation shaft didn't run off to bring reinforcements. Enemy reinforcements was always a bad thing. They finally stopped in front of the armory door, which was, unsurprisingly, locked. Mary immediately went to work on the electronic lock, requesting them to give her a minute. In the meanwhile they all stood guard around her, just in case something attacked. Just as Mary promised, she was done in a minute. She placed back her equipment and readied her weapon, giving a nod to Leone, who walked over to the lock. Everyone moved away from the path of the doorway and prepared themselves as Leone looked at them, wordlessly asking them if they were ready.

He received six nods in return and opened the door.

The door opened with a hiss and immediately the hallway was deafened by the booms of gunfire and the wall in front of the door was showered with bullets. The squad took a step back from the door, raising their weapons.

"Hold your fire! _Hold your fire,_ dammit!" Leone shouted over the unrelenting gunfire. Damian listened closely and was able to hear the shooter screaming his lungs out as he fired his weapon, which he deduced was an assault rifle from the amount of bullets that was being fired. Three seconds later the bullets stopped coming and Damian could hear the heavy breathing coming from the room. "We're UNSC soldiers, hold your fire!" Leone repeated, now assured that he could be heard. He waved his hand in front of the open door while clutching an ODST patch for identification. No further shots were fired.

As one unit, they quickly poured into the room. Their weapons were immediately trained on a lone marine who was standing behind an overturned table which he had been using as cover. Damian studied the marine as they came closer. He stood at nearly two feet and had a large body build which made him a somewhat intimidating sight. He was of Hispanic descent, light-brown eyes, short black hair and a prominent scar running down from his left cheekbone to his jaw, creating a thin gap on his unshaven face. His eyes traveled to the name tag on the man's BDU(battle dress uniform), which read 'Ramirez' in large, bold letters. Damian was slightly taken aback from the overjoyed expression that came to the marine's face. His eyes were literally shining with the pure joy that he radiated.

"Drop the weapon!" Brass barked and the marine complied happily, as his mouth slowly grew into a large, genuine smile. Brass kicked the weapon further away from the marine and ushered him away from the table, where he saw a shotgun and enough clips for both weapons to supply a platoon.

"Thank, fucking, god!" Ramirez exclaimed, as he looked at the Helljumpers happily. "I was starting to think I was alone on this goddamned planet!"

"You might be right about that," Akira supplied as she looked over the armory. The armory was practically empty. Only a handful of weapons, beside the ones the marine was using, remained in the room. However, there was more than enough ammo for them to all use and share plentifully. She was thankful for that. Several crates of food supplies were stacked in the corner of the room, most of which were already empty. She turned her gaze back to the marine before she continued, "We arrived yesterday."

Ramirez nodded enthusiastically, visibly not caring about the details. "Man, I'm glad to see you guys," he said, shaking his head, moving a hand through his dirty hair, which was starting to reach his shoulders.

"Do you know what happened here?" Damian asked.

Ramirez turned his gaze to the PFC and for a moment Damian saw the haunted look his eyes contracted. "Hell yeah I know what happened here," he said tonelessly, with an empty voice. His eyes quickly regained their lively shine. "But first, more importantly, when do we get extracted?"

Damian exchanged glances with the rest of the squad, wondering how he should break the news to him. They had no way off of the planet. He felt quite bad about crushing the guy's hopes like that. The guy was ecstatic just to see them and had probably been waiting for rescue this whole time. Damian eventually decided to tell the man the truth. "Not anytime soon marine," he told him, "sorry," he added as an afterthought.

The marine looked at Damian blankly for several seconds before his features shifted into a murderous look. He stepped closer until he was standing almost nose to nose with the PFC. Ramirez was a head taller than him and he had to crane his head back a bit to look into the marine's eyes.

Damian suddenly found him to be much more intimidating than before.

"What do you mean 'not anytime soon'?" Ramirez asked him in a quiet but murderous tone.

* * *

Many miles from Alpha base, at the bottom of a cliff overlooking the jungle, beneath broken branches and jungle foliage a body stirred.

* * *

_**DelVarO's A/N: **_Hehehe, man, I have to admit that I love this chapter. It was quite fun to read it. Not much of Yautja in this chapter, other than this last bit, which is not much at all. It's a damn good chapter in my opinion. I also finally introduced Ramirez, who you can probably recall from the first chapter!

Things are bound to get interesting, I can promise you that. The next chapter will pick up from this point and you will finally get some answers...maybe.

Feel free to leave a lovely review! It makes me feel great to know that you read and enjoyed my story. Thank you for reading the story and special thanks to all those who reviewed my story and told me their opinions! I really appreciate it. I gladly and happily accept constructive criticism, suggestions, ideas and plain opinions, so dont be shy and feel free to speak your mind. Hell, you can even tell me my story sucks, as long as you explain why. Thanks again for reading and until next time, Delvaro out.

**_BraK3R's A/N: _**Stay tuned. I will try to get Chapter 11 out ASAP but no promises :). Also, goodbye to Delvaro's author notes. From now on, it'll all be just me.


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